COMICAL RAGE!

Astral @ Astral’s eve trial by fire posted recently about a corp. mate who rage quit over losing a drake to a nasty LvL 4 Mission. I was around in the corp. public chat for the whole chain of events that ultimately lead to a rage quit!

We all foam at the mouth now and then about one thing or another. We are human and as a result we have anger as an emotion. Before we get too far into this for all you “I don’t get angry!” folks. If you don’t feel anger you need some serious help before you wake up in the middle of a shopping plaza wondering how you came to be covered in blood or end up like this dude in Big Trouble in Little China.

This anger is real even when we are playing a game for fun. The disappointment of seeing your avatar buy the farm and the sense of loss is real. You worked hard for that gear and now it’s gone. All the comforting and advice falls on steaming ears. You need to process your anger, then the sadness, and perhaps some embarrassment before you can rationally get back to the tasks at hand.

The down side to all this real and just rage is that someone else who is calm and watching it all will most likely be chuckling. Watching someone blow a gasket provides for some truly hilarious times. Why you might wonder. It reminds us of the last time we were consumed in fits of rage. Hammering at the desk without fists, yelling at the world, and looking for a nice plump house cat to punt. This makes us feel embarrassed and a natural reaction to embarrassment is to laugh it off.

To further this in EVE there are a large number of players who practice griefing. They find fun in harassing other players into fits of comical rage or extracting tears as they prefer to call it. So on any given day while playing EVE if you are not docked in a station you might fall victim to any number of methods to set that final spark in the tinderbox of rage within you. I recently asked Cyberin @ Hands off, My Loots! How he would counter his own game as a ninja. The resulting post is a great read even if I might not advise you to pay this man for protection, but check out GO AWAY NINJA! It’s a great example of how comical rage can be to others and how to defuse a griefer.

So back to the meat of it all we all NEED to pull a nutter now and then. I sure have and am bound to do so many more times before I shuffle off. All my life I’ve had a short fuse and the best thing I can say is learn from it. Half the time you are angry at yourself for not following advice or trying something risky that backfired. Simply put if something makes you angry find ways to stop it from happening.

So here are some great ideals I live by that help me reduce my comical rage in EVE:

#1 Don’t fly anything you cannot afford to lose!

HUGE RULE! Especially when you are new and ISK is not flowing. Trust me if you take out a 30M ISK Battle Cruiser to run level 4 missions and only have 10M in your wallet. You are setting the stage for some prime rage.

#2 Take advice as it’s given, even if you don’t like it!

Most people will give you advice based on them seeing you about to make a mistake they have in the past. If you ask for advice and get it then choose to not follow it. Great you’re a free thinking person who likes to blaze their own trail. Expect to fall on your face down that flaming path to glory and lots of anger as you figure it out.

#3 Know your skill and ship limits.

Just because you have opened up level 4 missions does not mean you can run them. The incoming DPS is a lot more in level 4’s than a level 3. The battle cruiser with the T1 mods that sailed through the same mission in level 3 mod will melt under your pod in the level 4 variant. Just like you don’t learn to PVP in a Navy issue Megathron that you can just fly and half fit. Guaranteed RAGE!

#4 Have fun and do things that make you happy!

The bottom line is this. If you try something and are getting horribly burned to the point of rage quitting. There is a good chance you are doing something you don’t enjoy and a change in activity is for you. You are in luck because there are so many things you can do in EVE that switching gears is only a matter of doing it. Don’t get me wrong though. Sometimes you have to take some lumps in the name of education. Just because it’s hard is no reason to quit.

Cheers and Fly Grumpy not Angry.

EVE SOB