Darvo Thellere recently wrote up his thrilling tale of revenge on the Eve subreddit, detailing how he achieved his goal four years after initially being harassed as a
How would you describe who you are in Eve now compared to four years ago when you first met Kackpappe?
When i started Eve i was absolutely overwhelmed by Eve. I had no clue what to do.
I came from World of Warcraft and was thrown into this game. I had no clue and did not realize how much harassment is possible – and allowed by the game mechanics and the idea of the sandbox. I underestimated the ‘war’ in Eve and learned early that personal differences can lead to a very hard time in this game. I am glad that I found some experienced players that took care of me, explained me the basics. Spent my first 3 months in eve in various wars, not just against
I experienced the thrill of the hunt in Eve, that PvP in Eve Online can be rewarding. I focused my gameplay on PvP, tried out different combat styles. I lost a lot of ships and analysed the fight afterwards. I did solo, mid-scale and large-scale PvP, tried wormhole operations and pirating. There are plenty of guys who dislike me as well in this game. I try to be ‘the annoying idiot’ who remembers people to the complete lunatic. This is a role in this game i took for myself because it created PvP content for me. I even tried a little of the Bad-Guy-Politics by creating (together with some friends) the merc alliance Ish-Stars until we got bored and tried something new as a gang. I am very close to the guys i fly with today, i rely on them and they can always count on me.
How was it that Kackpappe harrassed you way back then? Was there anything that made him stand out against the other hisec wardec groups?
Well for me it was suprise. I knew it was only one guy, the guys that helped me out were a bit more experienced and gave me the intel. I was a noob and wanted to fight him. “What can one guy do? I have my might Kestrel!” – well they explained to me that he would crush me. I was frustrated but i understood their arguments, so we just hunted in fleets and he stayed cloaked.
The difference to other groups was (and is – today i know all the leaders of the large merc alliances in Eve, i do have them on my buddy lists and from time to time we chat a little) that he focused just on newbies and stated his own goal that he wants to ruin our game experience so much that we quit the game. At least the mercs i know don’t wardecc to just ‘make newbs quit’ but to gain money or to create PvP content. Sometimes politics are involved, but not just the will to stand over a newbie who has no chance. This behaviour – back in the days and today – made me angry. I am still convinced that Eve needs fresh players and they should be backed. Even when i was part of the leadership of Ish-Stars we took care of newbs.
When we took a job against them we gave them the chance to avoid the war. We offered them solutions and help after the war. We even gave a few newbie-corps free protection and recruited single members. Today i fly with some of the newbs we have warred against in the past. Eve needs new players to provide content for everyone. It lives on its community. This is something that made Kackpappe special: He either did not know this or did not care.
What advice would you give to a brand new player nowadays in a similar position?
Well poke me. And if you want to avoid just wardecs: Drop the corp, go to an NPC corp and go back into your corporation when the war is done. Most people just want fights or are paid for the war. If you don’t deliver content, most of them move on. And if these guys really want to ruin your day: Avoid him. Move to Nullsec or to wormholes. There are plenty of cool corporations out there that support beginners and help them. Tell the people your story. In my experience, the most high skilled Eve-player will support newbies in needs.
Despite the negative aura surrounding highsec wardeccers, would you say they add much worth to New Eden? Did you gain anything positive from your experiences years ago?
Well i did! The most important thing i learned: Everything you have in Eve is in danger. There are people out there that can take the ship you worked so hard for. And if it’s gone, it’s gone. This is someone everyone needs to learn in EvE. Highsec-Wars are part of the mechanic of Eve, they add this little extra ‘danger’ into highsec. This should be something to be considered, even if you are not interested in PvP at all. These wars told me a lot about the mechanics, how they work and how to avoid being the victim of a hunter (or even the war itself).
In my opinion all this ‘negative aura’ that is talked about is a good thing. I put a lot of effort into it to gaining such an aura as well (and it might have worked at least for a few people). Eve needs ‘villains’, ‘bad guys’, otherwise it would just be a friendly and heartwarming farming for money. Like Canada but with spaceships.
You spoke a little about creating political drama to force Kackpappe’s hand, how did you do that?
Well this was mostly luck. Kackpappe was kicked out of his old corporation. His former CEO was very mad at him and wanted to kill him desperately. Two things were important: 1 We needed to make him stop, because I wanted the kill. 2 We needed to convince him to move all his stuff at once to our space so we can deal the maximum amount of damage to him. This is why we instantly formed a PvP fleet. His CEO anchored a bubble in front of the Kackpappe’s station and waited to kill him with his Hel. We burned over and informed him that we are coming to ‘save our member’, that ‘shooting blues will have consequences’ and forced him to join our Teamspeak comms. Although he seemed like a cool dude (sorry for the drama here buddy) we acted like asshats, wanted to force an apology from him. Obviously he didn’t want to so we asked him to inform our diplo about this problems. Both parties did, the CEO and we.
As expected, one of our alliance leaders, Falklord, did not want to escalate this too much so he asked us to bring the assets of Kackpappe out of the system as fast as possible so the other CEO cannot kill our corp member. With this order out we went to Kackpappe who had noticed the drama as well. He agreed to put as many of his assets into his carrier before he’d jump into our system.
You must have been ecstatic when you finally popped him! How did he react at the time and has he spoken to you any more since?
Well i expected the Teamspeak-comms to be very different. It was very calm. He jumped in, asked why he received damage. I said this would be because we are shooting him. I invited Lunarion to our Teamspeak (he was my buddy back in the old days and i knew that he wanted to hear this with his own ears). Lunarion joined the comms, said ‘hi, Lunarion here’ and i changed my name back to Darvo Thellere. This is when he noticed. “Argh fuck, Darvo Thellere. Looks like i got the wrong dudes.” (roughly translated from german). But he was calm in this situation. We thanked for the loot and kicked him from Teamspeak.
The day after i had a chat with him in the german help channel. He was insulting me in different ways, said that he wished that i’d be beaten up in real life. He was very salty. I think we reached 7 PE on the Martinscale. In our corporation we value tears in the unit PE (public-enemy) on the Martinscale (a scale that reaches from 1 to 10, named after the alliance leader of public-enemy “trottel martin”). The current change is 4xTears=1 PE. To be fair, this PE on the Martinscale gave me more satisfaction than the kill itself. I killed more expensive stuff in the past. But i’m sure he will not forget this day too fast.
Sounds like he got what was coming to him. What are your plans now, Is there anyone else who you want revenge on?
Well i hope he learned his lesson. Maybe some other guys like Kackpappe learn that everyone needs to pay his bills. If i would have more people on my list i could not tell you unfortunately, this would ruin the surprise. But for now our corporation moved into Nullsec. We set new goals for our corporation – beside to win Eve – and are currently working on this.
Since we are a small gang of friends we need to grow first in numbers whilst we are fighting in the upcoming
Was there anything else that you wanted to expand upon or share with our readers today?
Sure. PIRAT is bad, PE are Schwabbelsäcke and we are hoping for great fights against Lumpy, GSE and all their friends. They know their business and the best fight is a hard fight. Also we are still recruiting german players, so if anyone wants to join the glorious corp “Abra-Kadaver” or feels bound to our corpticker “[26cm]”, poke me. I will not kill you, you can trust me.
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