My first article for MMO community hosting service Guild Launch has been published. Exploring EVE Online: Fanfest and “The Nation of EVE” discusses the nature of EVE’s complex society and looks at highlights from Fanfest. It also sets me on a path which will require help from the EVE Online community.
As the Guild Launch blog is an “out-facing” website, with a readership comprising non-EVE players, I see this as an opportunity to showcase aspects of EVE Online’s community and gameplay that are often overlooked in favour of the more sensationalist aspects of EVE activity. In the greater gaming world, it is a widely held misconception that all EVE players are selfish bastards just looking to hound new players from the game.
It is my intention to corp-hop for a year in order to experience and write about the wide variety of activities and communities that we know exist, but the rest of the world dismisses as the antisocial behaviour of just another bunch of griefers. By documenting the multitude of social and gameplay options available to the EVE player, I hope to paint a picture of a diverse, engaging and open universe of endless possibilities. Unless I find you are all selfish griefing bastards, in which case I’ll write about that instead. It’ll still make good copy.
Over the course of the next year, in no particular order, I will be looking to explore the following aspects of EVE Online:
- New Player Experience/Training Corporations (I’ll be doing this first).
- Faction Warfare (post-Inferno)
- Null-Sec Sovereignty Warfare
- Industry/Mining
- Market PvP
- Low-Sec Piracy
- Ninja Salvaging
- Small Gang PvP
- Can-flipping
- Wormhole Exploration
- Incursions
- Roleplaying
- Scamming
- Metagaming
- (anything else I’ve overlooked)
I have had some offers already, but if your corporation or alliance is prepared to take me under their wing to showcase your chosen play style, please get in touch.
Of course, I realise that this venture will raise all manner of concerns regarding operational security and spying. I can only state that I intend to approach this project with complete transparency and it is neither in the interests of my integrity as an “embedded journalist” or the spirit of showcasing EVE Online for me to leak like a sieve or stitch anyone up.
I would work with my host organisation to examine the gameplay at hand and integrate with its community for the duration of my stay. In this way we can work as a society to show an alternative face of EVE Online to the one perceived by many readers, your corporation or alliance will get some exposure and I get to meet lots of cool people. Everyone’s a winner.
I’m not trying to portray the “Nation of EVE” as something it’s not, but let us at least give the gaming world the opportunity to make an informed decision.
Together let’s showcase the true face of EVE Online.
7 Comments
Moriarity Kanenald · 31/03/2012 at 17:35
Hi – welcome to Eve! I think wherever you go you will find just how supportive this community is. Check out my blog – I only got going in Eve a few months ago.
Give us a shout in game – although I warn you I am heading away for a few weeks.
Moriarity
Seismic Stan · 31/03/2012 at 18:32
lol, thanks for the welcome Moriarity, I'm sure I'll settle in eventually. 😉
Roger Burgess · 31/03/2012 at 19:09
Before you do anything in EVE, go read this post differentiating between Old School D&D and the more recent iterations:
(no knowledge of D&D required to understand, I promise)
http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-horizons-upcoming-edition-d-d/317715-very-long-combat-sport-vs-combat-war-key-difference-d-d-play-styles.html
And understand that EVE is a Combat as War style game.
Once you grok that EVE is a game of strategy first, tactics second, it makes much more sense and you'll have a much more pleasant experience. Seriously, I cannot possibly emphasize enough how important understanding Combat as War as a mentality is for enjoyment of EVE.
Fly safe and look me up, I'm Algazel in game.
Seismic Stan · 31/03/2012 at 19:56
Thanks for the advice and it's encouraging to see that folk are supportive of this project. That link certainly looks like an interesting take on the grounding of gaming philosophy.
However, I should probably have made it clearer in the post above that I'm not new to EVE. I've been playing on and off since 2003, have experienced many aspects of EVE's gameplay and am effectively a veteran (if bad) EVE player.
I've attended two Fanfests, one EVE Vegas and have had some experience in podcasting and have been blogging about EVE since 2009. I'm under no illusions about the realities of EVE life.
Darek Castigatus · 01/04/2012 at 11:51
Since you want to do new player training first I'd recommend getting hold of EVE University and Agony Unleashed.
For some of your other points The Tuskers are good for small gang pvp with a smattering of piracy thrown in, TEARS are the quintessential ninja salvagers and AHARM are obviously the most well known of the wormhole alliances.
Not being one to toot my own horn you totally shoudlt also check out my alliance Shadow Cartel for the piracy and lowsec PVP sctions 😉
Best of luck anyway.
Kirith Kodachi · 02/04/2012 at 17:38
I think a stint in Red versus Blue should be included as that kind of PvP (I'll call it Arena pvp) is very different from others.
Good luck! If you need a stop in Kadavr Black Guard for low sec, let me know
Seismic Stan · 02/04/2012 at 17:57
I am indeed going to be looking at EVE University and other training experiences first off. Quite how this will play out on a timescale front I'm not entirely sure yet. I'd like to spend some time with a number of rookie-accessible corps before my next article at the end of the month, but I won't have time to become too involved. I'm kind of winging it at the moment.
RvB is definitely on my list and I had some productive chats with one of their senior members at Fanfest.
NK's Black Guard were always going to be my first port-of-call for low-sec small-gang PvP in a couple of month's time.
Comments are closed.