Crayzkinux has posted a response to our questions, but I am simply in shock. Rather than continue to speak to a brick wall, I posted one comment on his post which of course, may or may not show up.  Yes, there is a deleted comment from me already there, I wanted to correct for typos.

CK,

I have never asked you to help me “get in” with CCP nor do I have that desire. I have asked you one, simple question, over a year ago, and you refused to answer.

Did CCP initiate contact and ask you to run the contests?

You are the ONLY person who refuses to disclose that relationship. I applaud you for taking the time to respond, but yet again, you refuse to disclose the nature of your relationship with CCP.

It’s not a hard question to answer. Heck, Roc of Roc’s Ramblings could answer it as well as everyone who has run a contest. Why can’t him? I leave this up to you.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHT ADDED AFTER POST WAS PUBLISHED:

One final thought. If I am this power hungry person CK makes me out to be in his post, ask yourself, why did I turn over the OPML download work to Mandrill?

Mandrill drops me a line one day, says he’s working on a concept on how to maintain an OPML listing and shares with me what he would like to do. I told him I thought it was awesome and asked how I could help him. I sent him my current listing, introduced him to Black Claw at EVEBloggers.com and shared with him both how we kept each other updated on changes to the listings

After a few weeks I handed over the OPML to Mandrill, he was and still is doing one hell of a job. Do be sure to thank him for his hard work.

I don’t see myself as a leader of this community CK, I see myself as a member. Always have and always will. I don’t want to control everyone nor do I have any aspirations to “be you” nor to be the news breaking journalist of all things CCP. I want to write and to be able to have faith in those who do lead this community. I will always be the first person to say you have done a lot of hard work for us all, but you refused to answer my simple question over a year ago and with this public now, you still refuse.

I had faith in you, trust that you had this communities best interests at heart.  I still feel that at heart you do have everyone’s best interests at heart, but I do question your honesty at times.

I know, it seems that my question seems a bit small in the grand scheme of things and perhaps it is, but to me, knowing the answer removes any doubt in my mind of your intentions and motivations.  The fact that you continue to refuse, for over a year, to put this question to rest, doesn’t instill fury in me.  It disappoints me.  Your the “blog father”, fathers  are, as you well know, honest with their children.

On to more interesting items.

Many of you have asked, am I back?  In a word yes.  I am back from my break.  I will be spending more time once again playing EVE Online and blogging about EVE.  Non-game related topics will continue on my other blog.

Since I have come back to EVE, I will be doing a few things differently.  Before I left, Mandrill had begun work on maintaining an OPML file for the community. Many of you have asked me if I would be picking up those activities if I returned.  Honestly, I don’t see a need to.  Mandrill is doing a wonderful job, he wanted to work the OPML for some time prior to my taking a break and being an IT person, I usually like to not fix things that are not broken.

Our community has a history of stepping up and taking care of itself.  Mandrill has done just that.  Of course, as I come across new blogs, I’m sending both him and Black Claw of EVEBloggers.com messages with new blogs as we had been exchanging in the past.

It’s been a long while we have had a podcast from Winterblink and the Warp Drive Active crew. One of the segments that used to tickle my funny bone was the Fail Mail segment. Urban and Winterblink would both exchange a kill mail that displayed errors in fitting selections and they would decide between the two which was the worst.

I’d like to start that sort of thing up again here. So, this is how it will work. You canl email a link to the kill you think is worthy of a Fail Mail title to me in game.  For clarification, the in game name is spelled Ga’len with the subject Fail Mail. Each Friday I will share with everyone one of the fail mails that will be randomly selected. As your prize for your efforts in addition to receiving name recognition on this blog will be the in game isk value of the cheapest low slot module. Prize isk is provided by me and me alone as this is my gig for now

Eligible kills will only include kills from the month of June 2010 onwards. Kills that were part of Hulkageddon will not be eligible this year as many of those fail mails have already made it out there on various forums. Future Hulkageddons will be eligible.

To kick things off, here’s our first fail mail kill: http://druid.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=6999890

UPDATE: CK finally answered the question. Below is my comment on his blog showing his answer.

Ahh, I see a ninja edit.

Heck, if you are running it on your own and need help with prizes, let us know. I’ll gladly chip in because as you say, it’s about the community.

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Just a quick note, Hellhounds and Hellcats are still recruiting, head over and put your application in today!

• FANFEST WILL BE FROM MARCH 24-26 OF 2010?!?!? That’s right, there will be no fanfest this year. CCP has made the decision to hold Fanfest during the spring, so that we all can enjoy the beauty of Iceland when it’s not cold enough for various appendages to freeze and fall off your body!
• CCP announced The Great Deep Safe Nerf of 2010. For the TL;DR version, you will only be able to create a bookmark that is a max of 10 AU from the furthermost celestial object in a system. No more 100 AU safe spots. They will also be destroying any objects that are at deep safe spots when the Tyranis expansion is deployed on the servers on May 18th. I personally have used deep safes a few times, but all in all, I usually fit a cloak on a ship if I am in a position where I know I will need to be safe. Needless to say, the comments thread has a strong response from the community and we should see a revised dev blog concerning this issue soon.
• The war in Providence heated up over this past weekend and well…CVA is out of Providence. It’s all over for them in nullsec for now. I tell ya, I didn’t think I would be around to see it happen. So, the big question is what happens to Providence now? We will learn soon enough, but I would not be at all surprised if Ushra’Khan ends up moving out of their systems in Catch and staying mainly in Providence. Look for things to unfold in the next few weeks!
• As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download files Mandrill and I maintain continues.

See you out there!

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• Roc over Roc’s Ramblings continues his story, it’s getting interesting…
• Rettic continues to mix music for our enjoyment. He’s released the War Suite, enjoy!
• Kale Ryoko has released, in case you have not heard, a very wonderful video entitled Future Proof.  It’s a great video and I promise you will be entertained.
• Clown Punchers announced that they are leaving EVE. I will say, I am shocked and dismayed.  I was entertained by their podcast and they always seemed to be a fun bunch of folks.  I do hope they change their minds and come back.  Clowns, you will be missed!
• Nashh Kadavr and his Celebrity Death Match return from it’s hiatus!
• EVE:  The Burning Life was delivered to my door earlier this week.  You can pick up your copy in Hardback, Softback or for the Kindle.  I’ve already finished reading my copy.  It’s a good read with a really good story.  I don’t want to spoil it for you, but it’s not told from the Capsuleer perspective and honestly, I really like how the entire story comes together.  The twist at the end may have been slightly predictible, but it adds another level of immersion to our gaming universe for a person’s motivations on certain “questionable” actions.  It’s a cool portrayal of the events.  You will have to read it to see what I mean.
• As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download files Mandrill and I maintain continues.

Happy Easter everyone and see you out there!

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• Mynxee announced that she is stepping down as the CEO of Hellcats/Hellfleet. We in the alliance are saddened by her departure, but anyone who has been in alliance leadership knows that there comes a time when you need a break from the workload and make no mistake, it’s like a second job. She’s gone off to join NOIR for PvP fun. We all are wishing her the best of luck in her new adventure.
• Myrhial Arkenath wrote a wonderful observation post on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in EVE. It’s a great read for anyone who is new to playing EVE Online as well as us old, crusty vets.
• Roc over Roc’s Ramblings has a really cool storyline unfolding, head over and join in the fun!
• Rettic continues to mix music for our enjoyment. He’s released the Stationside Suite, enjoy!
• Lumenarious Rex over at A Scout’s Domain has written a great guide on making bookmarks, a must read for everyone!
• Larkonis Trassler has made a proposal in the CSM Assembly hall that is worth reading. He is asking CCP remove a game object from the Uemisaisen gate, that being a ruined station. He states that it negatively impedes game play given it’s present location. Head over to the thread and offer you support, he’s got a valid point on this issue and it needs to be addressed not only in this location but potentially others gates throughout EVE..
• Speaking of gates, EVE Gate, the “spacebook” part of the next expansion has gone live in it’s alpha test stage. Head over and check it out. Do keep in mind it’s an alpha version, that means that it’s buggy and very incomplete.
• CSM 5 is ramping up with the opening to announce one’s candidacy starting today.
• As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download files Mandrill and I maintain continues.

See you out there!

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Here’s your weekly highlights for this week.

• HellFleet continues it’s fun with a recent heist of assets from a high sec pos.  Valarissa returned from a break, shooting things with us on a roam.  Much fun ensued.
• Rettic over at Rettic’s Log is working on his musical talents.  He’s mixed two different soundtracks for your listening pleasure while you play EVE Online.  Head over and check out his collections, Sounds for Flying.  They are really cool to listen to!
• CCP gave us a nice dev blog on some of the fun with Planetary Interaction that is coming in the next expansion.
• Although I am no longer a member of Ushra’Khan, I do keep up on what’s going with the War in Providence.  I’ll keep adding information as it comes my way.
• More people updated us with what their EVESpace looks like.
• Alexander Gianturco AKA The Mittani gave a presentation at the GDC 2010 this year.  I am looking for a copy of his presentation online.  If anyone has it, please link it in the comments, I would be interested in watching.
• As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download files Mandrill and I maintain continues.  Mandrill has an update coming around March 21, so keep your eyes open for that update.

See you out there!

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Yup, 4 years….wow.

Five years ago my wife created a character in EVE online.  I joined her in trying out EVE, but my attention at the time was with another MMORPG.  That game fail cascaded in such a fashion that when someone utters the words, Star Wars Galaxies, well, if you don’t know, go Google it.

So, after that debacle,  I had free time to spend and I thought I would give EVE a go again.  That was four years ago and I tell ya, it’s been a fun ride.  I’ve spent time as a carebear in Empire, fought in many Empire wars, been a solo pirate and merc, been a director of a pirate alliance, fought for a nullsec alliance and most recently, joined HellFleet for more Yarr-ing fun.

I can say that I’ve pretty much done it all.  So, what do you do after four years?  Well, I tell ya, I’ve spent all my time doing these things and it’s always been a surprise how things have gone.  I’ll do what I always have done, just wander about and let things happen.  That’s when you have the most fun, when you get pulled into something.

And now, here are some of the highlights for the week:

• Piracy fun with HellFleet is well underway.  We took down a POS owned by an inactive corp.  Much fun ensued, read the whole story over at Mynxee’s blog, The Measure of Success!
• ProviWar continues (http://www.eve-druid.com/ProviWar).  I may no longer be fighting as a Warrior of the Ushra’Khan, but I can’t stop watching what’s going on.  They are still my friends and I do hope they succeed in these operations.  -A- continue their push into Providence, Sylph is no more (congratulations to Ushra’Khan) and things continue to progress as -A- takes sov in Y-MPWL and Ushra’Khan takes G-5EN2.  This closed the connections from Providence to High Sec space in Tash-Murkon and NPC 0.0 in Derelik respectively.  The only other high sec entrance/exit into Providence is now the R3-K7K/Misaba gate as all other systems high sec entrance/exit points have been taken.  It is highly likely that this system will also fall by this weekend as I can see while I finish up this blog post on Thursday evening, CVA has lost sov there.  With the only other logistical option being the use of jump freighters to get materials into the region and no guarantee of safely flying out said jump freighters, it will only be a matter of time before they regions completely falls.  CVA and friends are very neatly boxed into their space.
• CCP released a very open and honest devblog concerning the server stability issues that have been plaguing the game since late November.  I know I have been very critical of CCP for these issues in the past.  I want to say, this devblog is a step in the right direction.  The more technical information concerning these issues is communicated will lead to more of us who work with these technologies being able to provide help.  Keep it coming CCP, we are here to help you and we are more than willing.
• CCP “Laser Focus” God Torfi was interview at Ten Ton Hammer on the upcoming Tyrannis Expansion, read all about the cool stuff they are going to do with Planetary Interaction.
• Silver Night has announced a fiction writing contest with some decent prizes, head over and get out those writing tools!
• The next EVE novel, EVE: The Burning Life, is available for pre-order on Amazon.com for less than the listing price.  The novel should be released on March 30th as per the Amazon ordering page.  Head over and order your copy today!
• More and more people are posting pictures of their “EVESpace”, you can read all about them.
• EVOGANDA has put together a little something for all us iPhone/iPod Touch users, some wallpapers!  Check them out!
• As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download files Mandrill and I maintain continues.  Head over and see who we added this week!

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I’ve read the comments and I want to thank everyone who has listed my blog as a potential inclusion for CK’s blog pack.  It’s gratifying to see that many people like my blog’s content and I am truly touched.

However, I am a bit torn by some of the discussion I am seeing on this topic and I too want to chime in here.

Roc of Roc’s Ramblings voiced some personal opinions concerning the elitist concept around the formation of a blog pack.  I posted my comments on his blog, but I have more to say and I didn’t want to cloud up the discussion.

I feel the need to point out that Casiella Truza posted a good response asking everyone to stop being all emo about this situation.  I need to quote my friend here because he has a great point:

But you know what really gets me madder than a sack of hornets? When a sense of ownership turns into a sense of entitlement. “The list is popular and therefore we should get to decide what’s in it, because otherwise I will be sad and left out and the community will die.” As much as I appreciate CK’s hard work, the EVE community won’t die based on what one single person does or doesn’t do. We’ve grown past that. I’ll keep writing what I write (and so will many of you) because of the people that read it, not because I want some badge of approval from one single person.

People feel like they are being excluded because they are not in CK’s blog pack not listed in Capsuleer and that’s why they are all acting emo.  I agree with Casiella and this is why.

You should really take a look at the many other things the community has down on it’s own without  CK taking the lead to help us all grow.  A few of them are listed here:

• I created an OPML file of EVE blogs well before I ever met CK, however he was one of the many bloggers who suggested make it public for everyone to use.
• 00sage00 created the tweetfleet.
• Alexia Morgan created The EVE Online Portal (evebloggers.com) for all EVE blogs to have a fair shot of exposure to the world.
• Eddie Gordo created PodLogs to provide a place for anyone who wanted to blog about EVE to be able to do so easily.
• Mandril created the “streamlined OPML download” based on my original work years before meeting CK.  Mandril is also working on a categorized directory for all the EVE blogs.

All these endeavors have done very well under the guidance of the EVE Blogging Community in general.  We all build and contribute to our community in such a way that is inclusive of everyone.  We don’t isolate those few from obtaining the traffic that they should be able to obtain.  We keep things fair and we have done so very well.  We always have and we always will.

And for a final note, no, you don’t have to be listed in CK’s Blog Pack to be in Capsuleer.  This discussion has come up before and it’s mentioned on their forums.  Head over  and simply ask to be included in the application.  Work Roc and Pyjamasam and see what your options are.  There is a lot of love that goes into developing Capsuleer, you should share in that effort and respect their time, an offer of  compensation for their work would be most welcome.

What would a post about our community discussing an issue without yet another shared Google Items page.  Yes, I am a Google Reader shared items whore and I am proud of it.

You can catch all the content I am aware on this issue at:  http://www.eve-druid.com/ckbpd.  If I’ve missed anyone, comment here and I will get you added into the page.

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So, what’s the stuff from this week?:

• There is a lot of news concerning the fall of the D-GTMI system pretty much all over the place. The EVE Forums, the EVE Blogging Community, Kugutsumen as well as many other places. There are even a few YouTube videos from the battle in D-GTMI. In a nutshell, Paxton Federation held the system for over three years and when it came time to defend it from -A-, they lost the fight. Many reasons were cited from server lag (which was very bad although the node the NOT crash) to poor FC work to inexperienced combatants on the field. As to what the future holds for D-GTMI and PXF, that remains to be seen. It should however, be interesting to watch unfold.
• Against All Authorities offered an olive branch to CVA after CVA’s failure to invade Catch as well as their loss of the D-GTMI system. CVA continued to be the arrogant aggressor and as a result -A- and it’s allies continue their response with an invasion of 9UY4-H. As of the writing of this blog post, 9UY4-H is under siege. There are both EVE forum posts and a few blogs posts on this battle so far and as always, I am more than willing to share what I find, enjoy!
• Nullsec space drama continues to unfold. On Wednesday, Goonswarm disbanded. Many say this was only the natural course as a problem with maintaining isk in the correct divisions of the executer corp’s wallet led to the loss of key systems in Delve. After listening to the recorded meeting that Goonswarm held and their internal declaration that they were moving back to Syndicate, I initially though this was part of their plan. In that meeting, you clearly hear that the main speaker called the current sov mechaincs (in beta). They seemed to make sense that they would pull out of 0.0 altogether, until you read the post from kartton, the alliance director responsible for the sov loss in the first place. His post titled ‘Dear Goonfleet’ pretty much sums up the Goonswarm mindset of “Frak it all” as he simply took what isk was left and ran. In EVE online, you “adapt or die“. Goonswarm had to adapt to the new sov mechanics as well as the changes to the Titan Doomsday weapon from being an area of effect, grid clearing weapon to a single target weapon. They simply could no longer win fights with large fleets holding people on a grid and using a Titan to ‘clear the board’. Adapt or die, they simply could not do this. Their attitude that the’ sov mechanics are in beta’ reflects this inability to change and thus the infighting must have grown within alliance leadership. Cal over at the Wild at Heart blog has a great post on what happened. As more information becomes available, you can catch the updates at yet another of my Google shared items,Goonsfall.
• Casiella over at Ecliptic Rift has started a Tumblr blog. So, being the social creatrue that I am, I caved to peer pressure and created one as well, http://eve-druid.tumblr.com. I plan to use my Tumblr blog in the same fashion as Casiella, to post things that don’t make it into my blog here or things that I can’t easily share with Google Reader.
• Akura kawanaka of Eve Monkey announced that Fan Fiction Blogfest #2 is underway. You can read all the posts in yes, yet another Google shared item (Google should send more advertising dollars my way for all the props they get from me!)
• One of my favorite sites, EVE Travel, moved to a new home this week. Head over to http://evetravel.wordpress.com and see why it’s a great site. Mark726 fly around New Eden and bring you photos of all the landmarks in game. It will take him a while, but it’s worth following the journey. The “Wanderer” in me just keeps bringing me back to the site.
• CCP announced that they have learned a lot from their testing for the lag in fleet battles. Be sure to read the ENTIRE dev blog as there are some very useful tips on how to deal with these lag situations. It’s a good read and should be something you stop right now and do. I especially liked this part of the dev blog in reference to the final battle in D-GTMI: “On Jan 28^th, we had a 1600 person fleet fight on Tranquility which our team monitored closely, keeping the node alive using methods that make our system admins faint. This was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, fleet fight ever in EVE (at least where the node survived the ordeal). This event allowed us to identify what was causing some of these glitches and deploy fixes live.” So, they finally listened to us, went to a system where the fleet fight request system was used for node reinforcement and actually monitored a live fleet fight 0n the production server. LO AND BEHOLD, THEY WERE ABLE TO IDENTIFY SOMETHING TO HELP THEM RESOLVE THIS ISSUE! Ahem…Well, finally they are listening to the stakeholders and we are again able to work together. Better late than never, thank you CCP. I for one am more than willing to continue to help resolve these issues, let’s keep that collaboration going!
• Manasi over at A Mule in EVE wrote a response to the CCP dev blog on lag and very accurately voiced a valid issue about some of the survival tips for fleet lag.  He feels that the concept of clicking a module to activate it once and wait 8 minutes for the time out is unreasonable.  I happen to agree with him.  Read the whole post and participate in the discussion.
• As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download continues. I am continually amazed at the number of blogs that we have listed.

See you out there mates!

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Here are some things to highlight from the past week:

• It’s been an interesting week.  Many of you saw me snap and rant for a bit.  I’m not going to recount those forum postings and articles on my blog here, it’s time to move past that stuff.  I will say this though.  The EVE forums continue to see post after post of complaints, however, CCP is returning in kind with announcements of specialized test server sessions.  I’ll keep my comments in the future on a more positive note and less “ranty”.  If anything, CCP does inspire people with passion however there are times when that passion is not expressed in the best of ways.  For that, I am sorry.  This of course, leads us to the next bullet which addresses some of the ‘passion’ that myself and many others have expressed.
• CCP released Dominion 1.1.1, patch notes are available.  This line in the patch notes gives me hope:  Many behind the scenes optimizations and fixes have been implemented. Granted, this was announced before the test server testing on Wednesday the 27th, but it is obvious that they learned something.  The fight in D-GTMI hit 1600+ in local with well over 1000 on grid and the node held strong.  There was lag, but it was epically better than things have been, module response times varied from 30 seconds to 15+ minutes all throughout the battle.  Some times it was worse, other times it was better.  It was a bit random on who was being affected.  The lag problem is not fixed per se, but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was a week ago.  One thing that you have to note, the node NEVER crashed and that is a huge accomplishment.  We need to monitor this to see if similar fleet engagements obtain the same results, but I am feeling better about the work CCP is doing to work on this issue.  Yes, I will say it took too long since the deployment of Dominion, but they made a huge step forward.  My hats off to them on this one!
• Huge bullet point and this is why as it leads to this item. -A- and it’s allies continue their push into Provibloc territory.  First by reclaiming space they took from -A- during an attack near HED-GP and then they continued into Providence itself.  D-GTMI fell to -A- as a direct result of those efforts.  CVA and their pets put up a decent fight.  As I write this, -A- is deploying the tools for maintaining sov.  The system D-GTMI now belongs to -A-.
• Speaking of sov changes in systems, Goonswarm lost it’s sov in many systems due to it’s alliance bills not being paid.  Several other alliance lost their sov in the same fashion.  Seems that automatic payments for alliance bills have some issues, however, other alliance had these issues sorted out before their bills became due.  Many people are happy to see the goons fall as only the EVE Forums can relate.  A recording of a goonswarm meeting after sov was lost was recorded and placed on the EVE forums as well.  You can listen to it yourself.
• Helicity Boson was featured in one of the EVE Community Spotlight articles on MMORPG.COM for his work in organizing the Hulkageddon contests.
• Casiella Truza hosted an interesting discussion on writing fan fiction for EVE online.  If you like to write fan fiction head over and take a gander and join in the discussion!
• Speaking of Fan Fiction, Janette Davy has been working on an interesting story, head over and catch up on all the posts!
• On a non-EVE related note, Apple announced the iPad.  I am intrigued, but a lack of a camera, usb port and sd card slot are some things that I would have liked to see.  The announced accessories like the case that triples as a stand for watching movies or an inclined stand for ease of use of the onscreen keyboard for longer typing sessions are a plus.  The keyboard dock is also a nice addition.   Having an unlimited 3G data plan that is month to month, no contract at $29.99 is a major plus.  I’ll wait for the reviews after the 3G units hit the market here in the US in April.
• And of course, we continue to add blogs to The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download.  Even with the cleanup last week, we have made it up to 516 working blogs in the OPML!

See you out there!

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• Helicity Boson wrote a very long, interesting article concerning Carebears and why he hates them.  It’s a good read as well as the community response.  Yes, if you are sensing a Google shared item for the blog posts, your right.  Read the entire collection!
• Spectre over at EVE Newb has decided to take a break from EVE Online or perhaps it’s another one of his scams.  Anyway, it’s an entertaining read as are all the responses posted in the EVE Blogging Community.
• After many month, we finally have the FanFest background projection videos that were looped on the screen behind the main stage.  Enjoy!
• Dominion patch 1.1 went live on Thursday, read the patch notes if you are curious as to what changed.  There was a CCP Dev blog posted, the first one in a long time as well concerning the Dominion 1.1 patch changes. Items to note from these two articles:  Motherships are now Supercarriers, Drones can now be used to attack Zephyrs in wormhole space and most importantly,  CCP Tuxford can no longer shut down TQ on a whim.
• Still no word on when they are going to fix the game breaking lag in 0.0 space or the server stability issues.  In fact, the stability issues have gotten worse since this most recent patch.  Around 9:30 pm est, TQ went down along with the EVE forums.  Random lag storms have been hitting systems with local counts as low as 5.  CCP seems to be having a lot of quality issues lately.

In addition to continuing to play catch up at work from being out sick.  I made time to work on on the OPML download file this week.  From time to time I go through and make sure that I have all the correct urls and that all the sites listed are still alive.  For the latest additions to the OPML download, head over to The EVE Online Portal.  As of right now, we have 503 blogs listed in the OPML file.  Yes, that’s a lot of blogs.

Below is the list of sites that were removed.  I removed them as they were either dead sites, had no content or access to the site was denied for some reason, either from a server 403 error being presented or a site blocked page from blogspot.  If your site is listed below in error, please either comment on this blog post or email me to have this corrected.

• www.autopilotdisabled.com – No content
• www.hacksplat.com -  No Content
• sulla-monster.blogspot.com -  No content
• caldarinavyibis.blogspot.com – Access denied to the site
• www.warpscrambled.com/blogs/suddenlyninja – Access denied to the site
• www.waypointreached.com – No content
• triffonsbio.blogspot.com – No content
• phoenixcorps.blogspot.com – No content
• newedendiaries.com – Site is dead
• podlogs.com/tetsuotakashi – No content
• eve.phasma.bplaced.ne – Site is dead
• protosolus.co.uk – No content
• the-life-of-orias.blogspot.com – Site is dead
• khezual.blogspot.com – Access denied to the site
• www.systemkaos.com – Site is dead
• podlogs.com/neuralboost – Site is dead
• evepilot.eve-gamers.co.uk – Site is dead

See you out there!

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Update, Alexia has the site back up and running!

Alexia is working very hard to get this resolved quickly.  In the mean time, below are links you can use to get your community fix:

• CK’s Google Shared page for the EVE Blog Pack
• Ga’len’s Google Shared page for the OPML Download feed
• The OPML Download
• The EVE Online Twitter TweetFleet

Like many others, I will be busy with the upcoming holiday.  So, if I do not have the chance to speak to you, have a Merry Christmas!

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• Dominoin 1.0.2 was deployed, Patch Notes reveal that the Stargate Blockade Units were seeded as planned.  The grace period for Sov was extended to December 15th.
• We added more blogs to the OPML and The EVE Online Portal, check out the newest additions!
• Roc of Roc’s Ramblings continues his Advent Celebration series.
• Many of our fellow bloggers continue to write interesting posts on the EVE Online Expansion:  Dominion.
• CCP promised us the screen saver that they used as the backdrop at FanFest.  It’s not been released yet, but a very nice screensaver with Dominoin screenshots and music has been release, check it out!
• 54,181.  That’s the new PCU record as of 12-8-2009.  Congratulations CCP!
• Luminus Aardokey of Split Infinity Radio and the Planet Risk Podcast has proposed the creation of a shared bookmarks tool in the Jita Assembly Hall.  Head over and support this initiative today!
• Rettic wrote a wonderful back story for his character, READ IT!
• And to round out the list this week, check out yet another awesome kill by a Warrior of the Ushra’khan.  Yes, it’s a T3 Strategic Cruiser popped something almost unheard of.

See you out there and remember to finish your Christmas Shopping!

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IF YOU ARE READING THIS BLOG POST AT THE VERY MOMENT THAT IT WENT LIVE ON MY BLOG, GO SET A LONG SKILL THAT WILL TAKE MORE THAN 2 DAYS TO TRAIN NOW!!!!!

I always seems to come across a post on the EVE forums that  someone complaining either before or after Patch Day that they forget to set a long skill or did not set a long skill to cover the extension to the Patch Day outage.  We have also seen in the past that Patch Day will start early and we have see Patch Day be extended longer than planed, SO FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SACRED, GO SET THAT LONG SKILL RIGHT NOW!!

Ahem, sorry about that, it had to be said…..AGAIN!

While we are all waiting for the Dominion Expansion to be deployed and for our updated game clients to download and install, you have some free time.  Go outside, breath the fresh air, clean the kitchen sink, do some laundry and when you come back, go do something else as watch Patch Day is like watching the kettle on the stove boil water.  It will take longer than you think it will.

While you are waiting, here are some things to keep you occupied:

• Read Dominion patch notes.
• Read all the blog posts concerning Dominion.
• I personally loved Mynxee’s post on Dominion, “extra special linky-love” here!! http://lifeinlowsec.blogspot.com/2009/11/dominion-patch-notes-novel.html
• Visit the EVE Online Dominion Expansion page (http://www.eveonline.com/dominion), watch the new trailer, download some screen shots.
• Head over to The EVE Online Portal (http://www.evebloggers.com) and update your RSS readers with the EVE Online OPML download file, we have almost 500 blogs in there you know!
• Go drool over the new EVE clothing at Jinx (http://jinx.com/eve)
• For some IT related humor, head over to The Website is Down (http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com) and watch some of the videos, they are truly hilarious!
• Go play a flash game, like Galaxy Wars.  Yes, it’s addictive and you will hate me for it! 
• And finally, take the time to finish your holiday shopping!

See you out there!!

Thanx to Seraphina Orina for the suggestion to listen to EVE Radio!

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For those of you who do not know, Thanksgiving is a holiday here in the USA.  It’s a celebration of the founding of the colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts and what started the long road to the creation of the United States of America.

It is a day in which families and friends come together and enjoy each others company.  Well, it’s what’s supposed to happen anyway. 

This week we had some fun stuff:

• More and more blog posts on the upcoming Dominion expansion.  I’ve been keeping a nice page with all the posts up to date, Google Reader for the continued win!  http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user%2F03749674846786948488%2Flabel%2FDominion
• We added more blogs to our beloved community.  Look at the list of new additions at http://www.evebloggers.com/latest-blogs!
• The OPML Download is up to date with 481 blogs full of content for your reading pleasure.  Head over to http://www.evebloggers.com/eve-player-blogs-opml-download to get your latest copy!
• Massively wrote a nice article about a wonderful new resource, the EVE Online Morning Report.  It’s a great little podcast in a real news format for information on the EVE Online economy.  Head over to http://blog.erikmumm.com and check it out!
• Ushra’Khan, one of the oldest alliances in game, celebrated it’s 5th birthday on Wednesday.  Read about it on the EVE forums thread.
• The new trailer went live on the Dominion Expansion website along with a lot of juicy downloads.  Check it out!  http://www.eveonline.com/dominion

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDVEHE10nHc

See you out there!

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This week’s highlights are below:

• The CSM elections are underway, be sure to head over and vote today!  http://www.eveonline.com/council/voting/
• Mynxee over at Life in Lowsec has a great discussion on the latest CSM campaign and how the candidates can better reach out to the community.  Head over to http://lifeinlowsec.blogspot.com/2009/09/discussion-8-csm4-visibility-voter.html and think about this one.  Have an idea?  Add to the discussion!
• The EVE is broken blog has had a number of posts over the past few weeks on possible solutions to many game quirks that we all love to hate.  Head over to http://eveisbroken.blogspot.com/search/label/FeatureChange and take a gander.  It’s some good food for thought.
• Sovereignty has many more changes coming and our beloved blogging community continues to post in depth articles concerning the changes.  You can read it all here!
• Kirith Kodachi over at Inner Sanctum of Ninveah wrote a fun article on the latest Quarterly Economic Newsletter from CCP, head over to http://www.ninveah.com/2009/11/live-blogging-qen-q3-2009.html and enjoy!
• Have a new blog?  Post about over at The EVE Online Portal’s Latest Blogs page (http://www.evebloggers.com/latest-blogs).  The OPML Download has been updated to reflect all the new blogs as well.  We have 465 blogs in there now with a wealth of useful and interesting content.  Don’t forget, we have the in game channel EVE-Bloggers.  Come on by to chat with all the EVE Online bloggers!

See you out there!!

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Counting our new additions listed below, we now have 425 blogs in the OPML download. Do remember, the EVE Online Blogroll Lovefest that CrazyKinux maintains (http://www.crazykinux.com/2008/04/eve-online-blogroll-lovefest.html) is a listing of blogs that are active. The OPML download has some of the defunct blogs as they are still worth reading if you never had the chance to read them, like the EVE Online 0.0 Experiment (http://00experiment.blogspot.com) and a few others.

I’ve also been playing around with some of the new tools in Google Reader and I finally have an easy way to create a blogroll for all the blogs listed in the OPML download.  You can view the OPML blogroll on the OPML download page on this site, located at http://www.eve-druid.com/opml-download/

To get your blog listed on CK’s Blogroll Lovefest, simply post a comment on the post with your blog’s information. I check his listing from time to time to add blogs to the OPML download. I also add people when I learn about a new blog. If your blog is not listed on the OPML download and you would like it listed, just drop me a line at galen@eve-druid.com and I will get you added.

New Additions:

• A Sorta-Carebear (http://sortacarebear.blogspot.com)
• Bael’s Blog (http://podlogs.com/baelsblog)
• Blood-Thirsty Miner (http://blood-thirsty-miner.blogspot.com)
• Corp of None (http://corpofnone.spaces.live.com)
• Friends of EVE (http://friendsofeve.wordpress.com)
• Friends of Sharuveil (http://friendsofsharuveil.wordpress.com)
• Geddonz Gamer (http://geddonz.blogspot.com)
• I Love Sansha (http://www.exorigreg.blogspot.com)
• Jumping Through Wormhole (http://www.schippersnet.nl)
• Living a Lie (http://amarrian.blogspot.com)
• Thoughts – TFG (http://theflightlessgeek.squarespace.com/thoughts/category/eve)
• A Memoir from Space (http://podlogs.com/tehmastersword)
• Eve Tactical Engineer (http://podlogs.com/tacticalengineer)
• Fury and Fire (http://furyandfire.blogspot.com)

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Below is the latest edition of the OPML download update.  Counting our new additions listed below, we now have 361 blogs in the OPML download. Do remember, the EVE Online Blogroll Lovefest that CrazyKinux maintains (http://www.crazykinux.com/2008/04/eve-online-blogroll-lovefest.html) is a listing of blogs that are active. The OPML download has some of the defunct blogs as they are still worth reading if you never had the chance to read them, like the EVE Online 0.0 Experiment (http://00experiment.blogspot.com) and a few others.

To get your blog listed on CK’s Blogroll Lovefest, simply post a comment on the post with your blog’s information. I check his listing from time to time to add blogs to the OPML download. I also add people when I learn about a new blog. If your blog is not listed on the OPML download and you would like it listed, just drop me a line at galen@eve-druid.com and I will get you added.

• Small Time Trader (http://podlogs.com/alexvindaloo)
• Eve Online – Zeleka of The Last Watch (http://eveonline-thelastwatch.blogspot.com)
• The Scary Door (http://podlogs.com/stetin)
• The Elitist (http://theelitist.net)
• The Journal; Walking The Road To Liberation (http://podlogs.com/thejournal)
• The Eyes of the Hawk (http://www.eve-hawk.com/blog)
• All About EVE Online (http://learnstuffwith.us/abouteveonline)
• My Dear EVE (http://podlogs.com/mydeareve)
• .5 or Higher (http://5orhigher.blogspot.com)
• A “CareBears” Journey (http://podlogs.com/acarebearsjourney)
• MXB: EVE (http://mxb.brainthink.com)
• Nuke Thoughts (http://ivannanuke.blogspot.com)
• Missions Collide (http://www.kapput.com/missionscollide)

So welcome our newest members of the EVE Blogging Community!!

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If you are looking for my listing of EVE Player Blogs, I have removed my listing as it was a duplicate of the many listings that exist. Trying to keep all this separate lists in sync was a lot of work for everyone and it simply did not make sense.  So, to find the most up to date listing centralized listing, head over to The EVE Online Portal at http://www.evebloggers.com.

Player Blogs

• EVE Online Player Blogs

EVE

• CCP Games @YouTube
• Council of Stellar Management
• EVE Dev Blog
• EVE Online

Podcasts

• BOZOKast (Offensive Material Warning)
• Declarations of War
• FlyReckless
• Missions Collide
• PODDED Podcast
• The EVE Online Morning Report
• The Planet Risk Show
• Unknown Eve
• Warp Drive Active

Comics

• Warp Drive Active

Blogging Tools

• IntenseDebate

My Social Networks

• Ga'len @BattleClinic
• Ga'len @Digg
• Ga'len @IntenseDebate
• Ga'len @Twitter
• Ga'len @YouTube
• Galen @BlogCatalog
• Galen @Google Reader
• Galen @Tumblr

Current Hot Topics!

• Ga'len @BattleClinic
• Read the The Hellfleet Bloggers feed!
  Catch all the posts from the Hellfleet Bloggers!
• Visit my new blog!
• Visit the EVE Online Portal!
  Your central source for the EVE Online Blogging Community!

The HellFleet Bloggers

• Eviwyn
  Making a Mess Around Essence
• Lacrimae
  Talk Nerdy To Me
• Lakasha
  Night Witches
• Metalkiss
  Blogganeers
• Mynxee
  Life in Low Sec
• Shae Tiann
  Sweet Little Bad Girl
• Toonu
• Ulystar
  Tales of a Low Sec Pirate
• Valarissa
  EVE’s ‘Val’iant Vixen
• Venom Orchid
  Evolution of a Pirate
• von Diel
  Confessions of a Carebear Killer

EVElopedia

• EVE Fiction Portal
• EVElopedia Main Page
• Ga'len @EVELopedia
• Player Created Fiction

Guides

• 00sage00's Pilot Savvy Guide
• Beginner's Guide to Piracy
• Bookmarks Guide by Lumenarious
• Hallan Turrek's D-Scanner Guide
• Ombeye's 2d Maps
• Sard Caid's Advice for Flying Solo
• Spectre3353's FC'ing Guide
• Wensley's Rifter Guide

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For everyone’s convenience, Alexia has a wonderful service, The EVE Online Portal (http://www.evebloggers.com).  This website aggregates all the RSS feeds for every blog in EVE Online.

I personally like to read things in a reader, makes it easier to get everything at once.  Fortunately, most blogs have RSS support, so, I can get my EVE Blog fix in my favorite RSS reader.

I used to maintain an OPML file with all the blogs I found as I wandered around the web.  I maintained this file for the community for over 2 years.  In that time, the OPML file has grown and grown to over 500 live sites.  Unfortunately, not all of those blogs are active blogs.  Some have not seen any new posts in literally years.

Mandrill over at I am Keith Neilson maintains a different sort of animal.  He has a OPML file that only contains active blogs.  It’s streamlined and has constant maintenance to adjust for blogs that are no longer active so that you will always have access to fresh content.

Head over to http://keithneilson.co.uk/eve-bloggers-opml-download for your OPML file for the most fresh EVE blogging content.

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My character’s name is Ga’len.  My name is Riley and these are some of my character’s adventures.

Some history on my MMORPG gaming experience.  I started back when the Internet was not publicly used as it is used today. I started out playing a few games on BBS’s (Bulletin Board Systems) playing TradeWars 2002.  I grew into the MUDD scene when I obtained my first Internet access account through a dialup account and a FREEnet system called CAPaccess in Washington, DC.  MOTU or Masters of the Universe was a MUDD I played for about a year before I began to play more advanced games, such as Diablo and a few other ‘online’ games.

Fast forward to this decade.  I was looking for a new game and a friend suggested that I try out Star Wars Galaxies.  Needless to say, we are no longer friends.

I came to EVE purely by a chance suggestion from my wife.  I tried things for a bit and went back to SWG as I simply did not have the time to play MMORPG’s.  Then the Star Wars Galaxies debacle known as ‘The New Game Experience’ came along and killed that game.

I came back to EVE and promptly started a corporation for my SWG guild. Unfortunately World of Warcraft had a larger pull for my old Guild mates. So, after a brief encounter with a group of really cool players, I joined up with them. The Really Awesome Players (TRAPS) was a great home for several months, however, I was not used to the play-style that was required to be a truly contributory member of the corporation. It was with regret that I resigned myself from the corp.

I stayed in an NPC corp for a short time and decided that the only way I was going to get use to PvP was to form my own corporation again. This time, it’s not part of any guilds from any other MMORPG’s, it’s a new entity starting from scratch. I am also planning on not having any corp members, at least, for the next year.

Yup, just myself. Why you may ask? Well, pirating in an NPC corporation, as fun as that can be, does not allow me to declare war on another corporation or allow another corporation to declare war on me.

So, I created the Wandering Druid corporation and started my life as a one man corp, wandering about the universe.  I messed about for a while, ended up joining up with a pirate corp for gang fun, they petered out, did my one man corp again and one afternoon, I was recruited by the Neo Spartans, flew with them for over a year, helped the form their alliance and what not.  After being a pirate for almost 2 years, I wanted to do something different.  A very nice gentleman named Thorvik in game kept bugging me to come and fly with him in Ushra’Khan.  He thought I would find a lot of fun role playing and flying with one of the oldest alliances in the game.  Thankfully he was right and for a time I flew with them, thinking that I would stick around until they reclaimed Unity Station in 9UY4-H.  That seemed to happen much quicker than planned.  That coupled with my desire to be more of a roaming pilot that engaged in space holding warfare led me back to my piracy roots.  HellFleet is my current home.

There are a few rules while you visit my blog:

• Enjoy yourself.  This blog is meant to be entertaining. I hope you enjoy it as much as I both enjoy finding inspiration for the posts.
• Make comments if you wish.  All comments are moderated. It’s my blog and I do keep a fair and open mind, but I will not abide mindless babble in comments to posts.  Mindless babble is my job, that’s why I have this blog.  If you want to engage in mindless babble, start you own blog and tell me about it, I will happily list it in the OPML Download.
• Really, enjoy yourself!! That’s what this thing is for!!

Legal stuff:

CCP Copyright Notice:
EVE Online, the EVE logo, EVE and all associated logos and designs are the intellectual property of CCP hf. All artwork, screenshots, characters, vehicles, storylines, world facts or other recognizable features of the intellectual property relating to these trademarks are likewise the intellectual property of CCP hf. EVE Online and the EVE logo are the registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights are reserved worldwide. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. CCP hf. has granted permission to The Wandering Druid of Tranquility to use EVE Online and all associated logos and designs for promotional and information purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not in any way affiliated with, The Wandering Druid of Tranquility. CCP is in no way responsible for the content on or functioning of this website, nor can it be liable for any damage arising from the use of this website.

Disclosure Policy:
This policy is valid from 1 January 2007.   This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact  galen@eve-druid.com.  This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation. The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. All advertising is in the form of advertisements generated by a third party ad network. Those advertisements will be identified as paid advertisements.  The owner(s) of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners. If we claim or appear to be experts on a certain topic or product or service area, we will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.  This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.

To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

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