About

Azual Skoll is the alter-ego of writer and retired Eve celebrity Tom Foskett - small gang and solo PVPer, Eve blogger, and (allegedly) all round nice guy.


I started playing Eve in early 2008, spending most of my first year as a hisec mission runner before taking the plunge into a life of full time PVP. Since then I've been everywhere from hisec to wormholes and sovereign nullsec, fighting in everything from frigate duels and roaming gangs to alliance tournaments and pitched fleet engagements involving hundreds of ships.

While I'm best known for the blog that you're reading now, my tenure as a popular PVP guru began much earlier than that. Before running this site I spent a number of years as the director of PVP University, a side project of the corporation Agony Unleashed. Agony is one of Eve's best known small gang PVP corporations, and was my home for over three years until I stepped down in early 2012. Through PVP University they offered a selection of excellent training courses to the wider Eve public. As a PVP instructor and the director of PVP Uni, I was responsible for introducing thousands of players to the world of Eve PVP - a great experience which allowed me to meet, and help, a huge number of people from all corners of both New Eden and the Real World to boot.

After leaving Agony I spent time roaming lowsec both solo and as part of Amarr Faction Warfare, before signing up as a member of The Tuskers - one of the most respected lowsec piracy corps in New Eden and home to some of the finest PVPers that I've ever met.

In 2013 I officially retired from Eve to pursue other things, although I still like to keep in touch with the community and the many friends that I have who're still active within it.

Thank you to all of you who read and supported the blog over the years, particularly those of you who flew with or against me in space - it was both a pleasure and an honour.


About the Blog

I really believe that there's something special about PVP in Eve - no other gameplay experience that I've encountered before or since offers the same mix of depth and intensity that you can find in this special brand of internet spaceship warfare. However, I know from my own experiences how challenging it can be for a new player to make the transition. The aim of this blog is to provide a source of information and inspiration for those looking to set out on a life of PVP in Eve.

For the most part, the information in this blog was built to last - more encyclopaedia than journal or news site. Since I stopped maintaining the blog a few years ago, some of the material (particularly articles related to the capabilities of specific ships) has regrettably fallen out of date as development of the game has progressed. Many of the more general articles do hopefully remain relevant, and hopefully the thought process behind them remains valuable even if the specific details do not.

You can find a fairly comprehensive list of my past articles on the Article Index page.

The Altruist is the Eve Online blog of Azual Skoll, PVP instructor and small gang PVPer.

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