An Interview With Rixx Javix – Pirate, Artist, CSM Candidate

Rixx: My name is Rixx Javix and I’m the CEO of Stay Frosty, one of the largest independent Pirate corporations in Low Security space and Alliance executor of A Band Apart alliance. I also write a blog called Eveoganda and have been doing that for over 11 years now. From time to time I also work with CCP on special projects, right now I work with the third-party vendor who runs the Eve Online merchandise store and I provide designs, illustration, and graphics. I also make a living in-game by providing creative services, like logos, for players and the community.

I also run in-game events, like our recent Frigate Free For All back on March 6th, which set the record for most ship explosions in a single day ever in Low Sec. 

And I’m also running for CSM this year for the first time, which has already been an incredible experience.

I enjoy meeting and interacting with other Eve players and learning more about their experiences with the game. Eve is amazingly complex and no one person can know everything there is to know about it. I find that incredibly fascinating and inspiring. So for me, this campaign has opened up a lot of new paths and reinvigorated my love of the game and the larger community of players that play it. 

Quite literally this was the first year in the last thirteen that I could run for CSM. Our children are old enough to take care of themselves and my Wife and I both work from home now due to the pandemic. So this time when I looked over at her and wondered if I should run, the answer was, why not? 

In-game I primarily run a very active group of Pirates primarily in Low Security space, organize roams and activities, and try to provide content for everyone we meet. We regularly roam all areas of Eve. Stay Frosty is known for trying to bring good fights everywhere we go, with good attitudes, and a laugh if we can. We strictly adhere to our Pirate Code which essentially means we honor 1v1s, keep our word, and try to help those we come into contact with.

One day my oldest Son tells me to look at this game on his computer and it’s Eve Online. This was 2008 and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The only thing I knew at the time I started playing was that the game was made by a company in Iceland, which is where the name Rixx Javix comes from (it being a version of Reykjavik). 

We’ve both been playing ever since. Pretty much non-stop.

I moved into Providence two weeks after starting Eve. And I split my time early on between Null Sec and Hi-Sec, learning the game and learning skills. I quickly became enamored with the idea that there were real people behind the other characters in the game, the challenge of pitting yourself – not against a computer AI – but against real players. I started to learn the martial skills of PvP and fought in many wars. And I learned from some truly great players. I took on increasing responsibilities within organizations and learned to FC fleets. Explored the new Wormholes. Became a Hi-Sec mercenary for a short time. Started alliances, served as a diplomat, took Sov, and finally decided to start my own Corporation.

I even once took a two-month break, tried PI, and built ships to sell. But the contest of PvP was my favorite thing and is primarily what I’ve been doing for the last decade.

My least favorite thing is PvE, which is why I don’t do it. And why I started making ISK by designing logos for other players and alliances.

When I started playing Eve I owned my own creative agency and I had very little time to actually play, except on weekends. I took a three-month break when I closed the business in early 2012 and since then I’ve been working as a business consultant primarily, in various capacities, for a wide variety of companies, agencies, and non-profits. I also started getting back into Illustration and my first big project was working with CCP on two sets of spaceship illustrations they sold as posters back in 2015 and 2016.
Truthfully my life is intertwined with Eve. My wife and I have traveled all over the world to various player meets, and we host an annual player gathering in our own home called Steel City Eve. All in all, I’ve designed over 1,400 logos and other graphics for alliances, tournaments, community projects, and other things – like Andrew Groen’s Empires of Eve book. I’m also currently helping with the new Clear Skies IV which will hopefully be completed sometime next year.

The primary focus of my advocacy efforts will be regarding Faction Warfare and Low-Security space. I find it confusing why FW has been largely ignored for so long. Every year we listen to CSM candidates tell us it will be a priority for them and yet nothing significant changes. Which, of course, makes people wonder why they should believe me when I say it. My reply to that is simple. I’ve never been on the CSM before and yet I still managed to effect changes I believed in – we have hats in-game now, the frills have been returned to the Vagabond, WCS finally got addressed after a decade, and I could go on. If I can do that outside the system, what can I get accomplished on the inside?

So if I had a magic wand Faction Warfare would be first on my list. Another immediate wish would be for main screen UI updates, which are desperately needed. And I have a friend in Stay Frosty who will be disappointed if I don’t mention that the Condor needs a buff.

I was trying to solve a creative problem I was having. As players we are used to looking at Eve on our computer screens, we experience the game visually. Creating art based on that visual reality is challenging because of that “video game” visualization – art is rendered and so is the game itself. So, how to overcome that? Or, even better, upend those expectations.

Through a lot of trial and error, I happened upon a creative solution that turned into one of the most intense explosions in my life. By removing the spaceship from space, treating the ship itself as the piece of art, you strip away the context players are used to seeing them in and challenge the perspective of your own eyes.

For me, the entire outpouring was an incredible learning experience. I started doing the illustrations one way and finished doing them a completely different way. I learned so much by creating over 150 of them and become so much better at the tools and skills I was using. Many of those skills had been dormant for years.

The best part was the response from the community. The attention brought to my art. And eventually, it opened the door to working directly with CCP on two series based on my illustrations. And then I found myself signing autographs on posters of my art at Harpa during Fanfest in 2015. Something I never could have imagined when I started down that road.

There are so many to choose from, but I’ll pick this one that happened back in 2019. This pilot was moving things into our home system and I saw him dock up as soon as I logged on. I kept watching him and he saw me in local. He would undock and then dock back up again. So I docked up and switched into a Nightmare and waited to see him leave his hangar. As soon as he did, I undocked and watched him warp away to the high-sec gate. Now, if he had warped to zero he could have just jumped and been perfectly fine. Instead, he auto-piloted to the gate and landed at 20k. I was already there waiting on him because my Nightmare warps faster than his Freighter. It took forever to take him down and I had to keep bumping him and deal with gate guns the entire time. Plus worry that someone would come into local and notice! But he finally went down. Sadly without much cargo to steal. 

Just a perfect combination of rare events.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/76509753/

My goal was always to get Rixx fully trained into all sub-cap PvP ships and I accomplished that goal a few years ago. After that, what to train? So I started training for Carriers and Dreads. My first Dread, this Moros, was a gift from another player. I had never flown a Dread in combat before until this time. We had three Dreads on the field with support. It would have been a good fight, except when I went to turn on the siege module – I realized that I had forgotten any fuel to run it. Needless to say, it went down pretty quickly to the Titan on the field. An embarrassing loss that won’t be repeated. Those are the lessons you remember in this game.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/77205606/