Pilot Note
In New Eden there are many many different pilots and many different ways to play. It is the greatest sandbox, where your dreams come true as well have you watch as they are crushed into thousand pieces. New Eden superstar is a look at a different capsuleer that Phox has encountered in New Eden and their take on EVE Online. I do not fully support them, but I feel that their views of the game are important to get a greater grasp of the New Eden Universe. New Eden Superstar are those chosen players that play EVE their way 
New Eden Superstar
Lord Maldoror
I can remember the first time I heard of Rooks and Kings, and Lord Maldoror. I was in highsec and we were talking about how to be good at PvP you needed to have Sov. Rooks and Kings didn't so they were not good. Then a couple days later I was talking and someone posted a youtube video. Naturally I clicked on it. It took me to video called Clarion Call 3. Not knowing what it was I took the bait and clicked play. The video was crazy long for an EVE video, just over 37 mins. Unlike other videos that I had seen at that time about which only showed hundreds of purple and red squares in space, this video showed the ships, zoom ins and outs, fighting and flying. It also had a narrative to go with it, a story. It was not a random battle in space. It was a war documentary showing one of the many wars in New Eden. Rooks and Kings would become my envy in New Eden. And they are the envy to many other corps and alliances. They all but wrote the book on Triage Warfare, they created the doctrine for small gang cap support, and they set bar for what is truly Elite Small Gang PvP in EVE. The New Eden Superstar for April is Rooks and Kings and their CEO Lord Maldoror.
What was your job before Rooks and Kings in Ned Eden? Did you always seek PvP?
Eve memories are rich and time is always short, so I'll answer the second part of that (because it's simpler).
I started the game with some friends from Counter Strike. We had little idea of what to expect and after an evening of mining in high-sec, we went straight to 0.0, where we set up shop in a dead -end system in NPC 0.0 (Great Wildlands). This was in the spring of 2006.
However, we were not necessarily seeking PvP. We spent most of our time ratting - first in Mallers, then in a Prophecy and finally, in battleships. During that time we lived out of a POS which we anchored to refit on and then unanchored an hour later (keeping scouts in nearby systems to ensure there were no incoming locals from the regional 0.0 power, to discover it).
All our assets were stored in Bestowers at 1000au safespots that we'd made.
It was in fact pvp that found us, rather than the other way around. A number of incidents took place. Firstly, my friend Arumin (Archivian) was tackled at the kick-out station in N-DQ by a Sacrilege. He proceeded to accidentally kill it with his Prophecy. I say accidentally because we didn't fit any warp disruptors or scrams to our ships at that point. We thought it might be uncouth to hold an opponent down and that it was more important to 'best thine enemy in battle and that be the end of it' as they warp off.
The fight was so close, however, that the hostile Sacrilege and Arumin's Prophecy both went to structure. Both felt they might win and by the time the aggressor realized he wouldn't, it was too late to get out.
Arumin immediately telephoned me with the news - sounding for all the world as if he was standing over the body of a dead stripper - that "I've killed someone". Thereafter the locals decided to pay us more visits.
The second incident was when someone entered our system, telling us we needed to pay for a Hunting Pass to rat there. In retrospect this really wasn't too extravagant at all but at the time it was shocking: a monthly fee of two million isk. Outrageous! We immediately resolved to conquer the entire region (which actually, in the end, I suppose we sort of did, thereby also reminding me to never underestimate a carebear's threats).
We realised that to go about this dark business we'd need to build some ships. Totally ignoring the common sense of 'if you can't afford to lose it, don't fly it', we decided to farm up some officer/deadspace fitted battleships which we'd theory crafted in Quickfit (the EFT of the day). We agreed that if our ships were destroyed, we'd kiss farewell to Eve and move on to the next game .
My ship was an Apocalypse Navy Issue called Bitter Moon. I don't remember the exact reason for the name; perhaps it was linked to the Polanski film.
NOS worked differently back then - you always gained directly the capacitor of the enemy. So the concept was simple - a full Chelm's tank, a Talisman set and a lot of NOS in order to drain the enemy, power the tank and slowly kill them (complete with officer rechargers to coast over cap dry targets and, when fighting gangs, a long range boosting ship for sensor strength).
Our first target was a poor Raven who was camping the same kick-out station where Arumin was attacked. Having no clue about what went on in Eve, we calculated in EFT that he may be full Estamel's fit, and so made preparations in this regard. Needless to say, he didn't have much chance.
Bitter Moon went on to terrorize the region for a good amount of time. There were numerous attempts on its life, most notably when Velios dropped his Hel and some carriers on one side of a gate, with a gang and more carriers on the other. However, it was in low sec and, unable to break its tank, Bitter Moon was able to crawl back to the gate while popping fighters with the aid of gate guns. During that time the second group had cyno'd over to join the first group (since the ship wasn't dying), allowing me to warp off safely after jumping.
It's strange to think that whilst once upon a time a Navy Apocalypse was thought of as a reasonably rare ship, today it's one of our stock battleship doctrines (albeit in a very different form).
The ship is still alive today. A good thing too - since I'd promised to leave the game if it died. Sensibly, the ship is retired and will remain so until the day I actually do decide to leave (if ever). Of course, it would need something of a refit now, since the build stopped being relevant over many years of changes in game mechanics.
What is your greatest time in EVE? Many people see you dual boxing repps and still FCing, what is the most exciting moment you have had?
Probably being phoned for the first time at some hour of the night by Princess Aricia and being emphatically told "I NEED YOU NOW" (even if the next part of the sentence was "in a triage").
When you set out to make a video, about a Fleet comp that you have or being jumped in a Low Sec Incrusion, how much work goes into it? Do you story board it out? Or like a many PvP do you turn on FRAPS and hope the fight goes you way?
Each main video needs to show something different. Usually there's a doctrine, theme or tactic I want to highlight and then it's a matter of choosing from the available recordings. Very few of our fights ever make it to a released video - I often feel bad when people say, "hope I see this on Youtube!" after a fight, since most likely it won't be. For example, my favourite fight of 2011 never made it onto a released video. 2012 still might.
What advice do you have to young alliances and CEOs that watch your Clarion Calls and Mr K an dream of having an Established PvP group like Rooks and Kings?
I'd advise them to focus on finding the right group of people and then the rest will come naturally. When people speak of communes in the 1970s or great, drug-fuelled gigs, they usually say that they didn't see the significance of it all until later - a certain sense of immortality is hard to let go of, I suppose. But I suspect many of us will look back on Eve with similar nostalgia one day. It's a deeply strange place, in many ways - the language, the culture, the drama. Who knows when you next find an experience like that online, so one might as well spend it with the right people.
And it goes beyond Eve, too. I like to know people who I can then break into abandoned mental hospitals with, or tunnel complexes, and then post 'battle reports' on the urban exploration site, 28dayslater.co.uk. I plan to make a trip to the Chernobyl sarcophagus one day, too, with the RnK core. If I can't trust in someone's scouting, I probably can't trust their reading of a Geiger counter either...
Rooks and Kings will continue to fly the skys of New Eden, and Lor Maldoror well continue to lead them. They are still creating new doctrines and finding most interesting ways of taking the fight to their enemies. The video below is Clarion Call 3, the one that made me a fan. I hope you enjoy it as much as did.
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