I spent almost all my time in EVE Online this weekend making bookmarks in my new low sec area of operations. For everyone wondering, yes desire is driven my not only Rubicon but where I think the game is going. If I'm right I'll be expanding my network of bookmarks past these initial 4 constellations to some pretty cool places that I've wanted to revisit since I last saw them when I was in Eve University 4 years ago. I've got a good start with two constellations with the full set of initial bookmarks made and the other two with all stations having the bookmarks made that allow me to instantly warp off after undocking. If I keep at the task I can begin with activity people consider more fun sometime next week.
Yesterday I was listening to Eve Radio and reading the in-game chat channel listening to people disparage Eve University telling people it was a bad place to go learn how to PvP. Something about the Uni being too risk adverse. Defenders piped in that the Uni is a place to learn the basics. I kept quiet because I just wanted to ask how butt-hurt he was that the Unistas didn't provide him with easy kills.
Perhaps things have changed since I left Eve University but I didn't feel like we were risk adverse. Admittedly that is a matter of perception. Someone who has only played a month, with two weeks of that wardeced, is going to feel a different level of risk than someone who has had two years to learn skills and acquire a war chest that allows him to lose 50 frigates without batting an eye. Part of the reason I created a second account and Wandering Rose was to make ISK and put Rosewalker through school.
I joined the Uni a few months after it made the move from Korsiki to Aldrat and before the changes to NPC taxes that made the Uni an attractive tax haven. Back then the attitude was that people declared war on the Uni looking for easy kills of newbies. Since picking on new players was fun, the objective of any war the Uni conducted was to make the war as miserable for the aggressors as possible. That meant no cheap kills that would give the enemy any fun. A decisive victory was making the aggressor withdraw the wardec before 7 days were up. And we did it too. I imagine getting station camped by 50 newbies, many of whom were flying Griffins (not a lot of people flying ships larger than a cruiser back the) was not fun.
Another thing I learned is that if you wait long enough, you can get payback in Eve. In May 2009 Seppuku Warriors and Dynaverse declared war on Eve University and destroyed the Uni POS in Korsiki. In November, during one of the wars where we were station camping an aggressor, a scout from Division 6 (the Uni wormhole group) found a wormhole housing two Dynaverse POS. Guess what we did? That's right, took them out. We took one of the POS out to replace the one Dynaverse helped destroy 6 months previously. Payback's a bitch, and when I was in the Uni the leadership kept a list of who deserved payback.
Of course, things may have changed. But I do remember the lessons learned four years ago. That's one of the reasons I'm thinking about taking my new pilot into the Uni. Just to see for myself.
D6 was my most enjoyable time in Eve. And that crew did run into PvP, because it was wh life.
ReplyDeleteOh, and Seppuku had a spy in D6 (we never figured out who), and came calling to the D6 pocket, hours before they dec'ed the UNI., trying to get through a low sec wh. We slammed the door with SabreA's fleet on the other side wh, ready to jump in.
But yeah, I was part of the group trying to defend the Korsiki POS on the 2nd day. That was not a fun day, but the UNista's fought hard, we were simply outclassed by superior weaponry.
UNI's policy of during war decs not flying high value targets, or easy targets, was a sound one. The typical type to dec the UNi was only interested in padding a killboard with easy kills....you know the type...losers. The sooner they lost interest with a war, the better.
EVE University now is a very different E-UNI from 12 months ago.
ReplyDeleteSome preamble; I love fighting outnumbered, I will quite happily engage 20 by myself (yes even without links, I'm to lazy to drag them around with me most the time) if I reckon I can kill 1 or 2 (and maybe get away).
If I die in the attempt, that's fine ships are for exploding.
12 months ago I outright refused to fight E-UNI if I had any choice, engaging 1 vs 20 is fine but I want to be able to at least fire my guns/launchers (it's a game after all the experience needs to be somewhat enjoyable for parties involved for it to work presuming neither party is a masochist), 5 or so BB's/Griffins make me just not want to fight as it basically means I'll have no fun at all. And I wasn't alone in this, it was the attitude of much of the Solo PVP community. You'd try and kill their scout at best, engaging their fleet was pointless you'd never get an interesting fight as a rule anyway.
E-UNI gangs would get reported in piratey intel channels and people would literally say; "E-UNI? Oh never mind then, no point fighting an ECM blob". Many of us told E-UNI how we felt about that.
Why should EVE University care? Well because they presumably want fights because in order to teach PvP you need to get well PvP, if an entire demographic of PvP'ers refuse to engage you you're losing out on learning opportunities. *How does one catch a kiting stabber?*
Now I'm totally cool with engaging E-UNI, for it seems the culture has shifted (maybe our complaints did not fall on deaf ears) when I go to EZA in Syndicate I can usually fight their null sec camp, and I still die plenty to them even when they use no ECM, but now there's a opportunity for fun and content that I can avail myself off and I sincerely hope E-UNI feels the same and has fun fighting too.
And just to pre-empt any comments on the topic; I'm fine with ECM and it being in the game. And it's a great and very effective tool if the aim of a fight is to simply win. If however your aim is also to teach and not just win its healthy to not chase away the "hostile" part of your course material before you ever get to the teaching ;-)
I keep a toon in EVE Uni for when I resubscribe. I think they handle PvP and war dec'ing very appropriately.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, it IS a university with finite instructors, time, and ISK (it's not poor, but they can't exactly afford all out wars). Their strategy teaches new players something far more valuable than overt PvP. It teaches new players that war is about far more than firing your weapons, that you can bleed the enemy and make their wars costly, weakening them for a final take down. It teaches the politics of war. I'd argue thats far more valuable than point and click run-of-the-mill battles with griefers and pirates. Far more.
It's useful if you want to become part of a sov block after the Uni for sure.
DeleteBut what if you want to become a 'nano-knight' or solo/micro ganger yourself? :) I was in EVE University once (a long time ago when Sabre X was still the FC dude) not much of what I learned about PvP in the Uni is useful to me, I picked a ton by comparison from doing Agony's classes as newbie though because they involve a different kind of fighting.
I'd suggest looking at what we're doing now. We have groups that routinely do small gang in wormholes, lowsec, and nullsec. Our entire focus on wars has changed, where now we try to mitigate them by just having fun elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to join E-UNI to take a look, or just chat about these changes, send me an evemail.