Mabrick is a carebear. That’s the life he chooses. It isn’t a life forced upon him or one he wishes he could change. It’s what he wants to be. That said, don’t take him for noob. He’s been around the block a time or five. With over 15 years of MMO playing under his belt and a memory that reaches back to pencils and dice, he offers his insights into the not so virtual reality we call Eve Online.

Mabrick’s Mumblings: Goons, if you can’t take the heat please get out of the fire.

I don’t do much Twitter work. I’m not the type to give a moment-by-moment monologue of my activities. I also find the format to be substandard for my purposes. There is a place for Twitter in this multiverse but blogging isn’t it. I don’t even throw links into the Twitter sphere any more. It just isn’t that good of an advertisement media.

One thing I do concerning Twitter is respond to mentions. So it was I received this post last week,

Elecktra Blue ‏@Azael_F0X
@Mabrick Honestly, your latest blog concerning Goonswarm is the worst article yet, you are beginning to sound like Fiddler’s Edge

To which I responded,

Mabrick ‏@Mabrick
@Azael_F0X Perhaps… But my traffic stats for the blog is through the roof. *cheesy grin*

And that garnered this response,

Elecktra Blue ‏@Azael_F0X@Mabrick So basically you admit to journalistic sensationalism, as long as we are both being honest here #tweetfleet #eveonline

Now, this illustrates clearly the issue with using such a limited medium like Twitter. There is no way to adequately address an observation like this using Twitter. The format is far too short. Fortunately I have a blog. It is more than adequate to address this observation.

So, is Mabrick’s Mumblings a sensationalist blog? Yeah, it is. By definition, sensationalism[1] is,

a type of editorial bias in mass media in which events and topics in news stories and pieces are over-hyped to increase viewership or readership numbers Sensationalism may include reporting about generally insignificant matters and events that don’t influence overall society and biased presentations of newsworthy topics in a sensationalist, trivial or tabloid manner.

That is, in fact, one of the things I do with Mabrick’s Mumblings. It is very interesting when you have a blog and you see that all your topical posts get a very ho-hum response and all your controversial pieces shoot through the roof. As proof of this fact, I offer these statistics.

These are my top 10 all time most popular posts as measured in number of page views. Throw out the Eve UI post as there are a lot of views from people looking for fighter cockpit pictures for some reason. Of the remaining nine, seven are posts about the Goons. They are obviously the desired topic of the moment. That gives me something I can use: sensationalism as a weapon.

But first, some background is in order. The Goons started this. They began by waging an economic war that threatened my livelihood and every other industrialist in New Eden. Notice my second biggest draw is the post Reward for my Hard Work is all I Ever Wanted. The Goons threw a big monkey wrench into that now didn’t they? So, strike one it was.

Then, the Goons bank rolled Hulkageddon. Once again they were the provocateurs. That was not a good month to be an industrialist, but it was only a month. After that things would become normal again, right? Wrong! The Mittani decided to make Hulkageddon forever. That was strike two. That’s when I decided to try and bolster my fellow industrialists by pointing out that nothing really lasts forever in my post The Legacy of The Mittani (4th most popular.)

Because of this post, Goon Swarm Federation (GSF,) the largest alliance in all New Eden, declared war against Mabrick Mining and Manufacturing – then a corporation of two. For such a large organization, they are very thin skinned. They had made threats for weeks about doing just this to those who dared say anything bad about them. That reminds me of Scientology but that is not the topic of this post. I knew there was a danger when I wrote the post. And indeed, the Goons fulfilled my low expectations. That was the third strike, and to mangle a metaphor, the gloves came off.

Now, I can’t fight GSF ship for ship, but I can bring my “pen” to bare. They don’t like the bad press? Too bad, I don’t like being war decced. However, I accept that as part of the game. The Goons need to get real too. If they don’t want the negative press they can always change how they behave. What’s that Goon Swarm? You don’t want to change. Then harden the frack up. You’re going to get bad press when you screw around with me. I’m not going to match your thousand ship fleets, but in this medium we are equal. No amount of QQ from you will stop me.

But the facts are, I’d rather write posts about the mining barge changes that are coming (9th most popular post.) I find much more satisfaction in comments left there than some of the claptrap I get with Goon posts. To be sure, there are a few interesting comments left on those posts – but it’s not where my heart is. I am an industrialist. I make things. I like blogging about making things. Blogging about Goons is not my idea of fun.

So here’s the deal Goons. You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. You stop declaring war against me and my way of life, and I’ll put away the +4 Sword of Sensationalism. Otherwise, get used to the literary abuse.

Fly careful.

[1] This is not to be confused with Yellow Journalism. This blog does not dip to that low. In order to be Yellow Journalism, these five (5) aspects must be met.

scare headlines in large print, often of minor news

lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings

use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudoscience, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts

emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips

dramatic sympathy with the “underdog” against the system.

- Mabrick

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