Flying Solo In EVE: Okami WIDOTs The Game?

The World Cup and the international frenzy around the world's most popular sporting event is gone, but heatwaves still remain. My excuse for not playing much is work has screwed up my sleep schedule. Europeans, on the other hand, are facing massive heat waves. Not so massive to those of us in the United States, but we have air conditioning and quality home insulation for the most part. Apparently Europe finds itself without the comforts Americans take for granted. Between Net Zero programs and energy disruptions caused by war, sitting in front of a computer playing EVE sounds like a hardship when viewed from this side of the pond. Hopefully things get better in September.

Last week average concurrency still remained at 24,000 accounts logged in at any one time, plus or minus 500 accounts. The peak concurrency also remained below 33,000 accounts for the third consecutive week and under 34,000 for the past month.

Jester's graphs were a little late running this month, so the above data is dated by a couple of weeks. The 30 day rolling average of players logged in was still over a thousand greater than last June. In both 2024 and 2025 the average dipped down to 21,000. I'm interested to see just how far the dip goes. If concurrency only goes down to 23,000 then a yearly average over 24,000 is definitely possible.

The summer doldrums extend to the global PLEX market. The average price of PLEX remained almost flat, closing at 4,510,000 ISK per PLEX on Sunday. The running of a 20% off PLEX sale doesn't seem to have moved the needle on PLEX prices one way of the other. Neither did a skill boost training bundle sale in the New Eden Store which ended yesterday. I don't know if Fenris accountants consider the price stability a good or bad thing.

When I started composing this article I had only read the first of Wilhelm's two posts on the upcoming player-build jump network nerfs. Which seems fair as FC Okami issued a follow-up post on Tuesday with more details. As someone who doesn't live in null sec I'm really hoping that Wilhelm's wrong, because then we are looking at an event bigger than Hurricane Hilmar which struck New Eden back in 2019. But even from my vantage point in Heimatar occasionally dipping into low sec I can see the potential for players to mass adapt a very old practice: to WIDOT alliances into one of the great alliances in EVE Online.

For those whose memories don't stretch back 15 years, I've cleaned up an explanation of what WIDOT actually means.

In EVE Online, "WIDOTing" (or WIDOTed) is a verb that refers to an entire alliance (or multiple active corporations within an alliance) dissolving its existing structure, consolidating all remaining members into a single corporation, and merging into a larger partner alliance.  

The Origin: Wildly Inappropriate

1. The term originates from Wildly Inappropriate, a major alliance during the classic "Northern Coalition" (NC) era in the late 2000s and early 2010s.  The Fall of the Old NC (2011): When the original Northern Coalition collapsed under the pressure of the Drone Region Federation (DRF) and its allies in mid-2011, Wildly Inappropriate found itself facing organizational collapse, declining activity, and loss of territory. 
   
   
2. The Merger: Rather than letting the alliance completely disintegrate or disperse into separate groups, the leadership of WI. consolidated their active player base from various member corps into a single corporation under the name Wildly Inappropriate. (with a dot at the end).  
   
   
3. Joining Goonswarm: This newly consolidated single corporation then folded into Goonswarm Federation in June 2011.  

How the Term Is Used Today

Because Wildly Inappropriate was one of the earliest and most high-profile examples of a multi-corp alliance stripping away its corporate structure to survive inside a larger bloc, EVE players turned the alliance tag into a verb.  

In EVE slang:

"They are going to WIDOT" = A failing or downsizing alliance is about to collapse into a single corporation to join a larger mega-coalition or bloc. 

"WIDOTed" = An alliance/corp that was absorbed/assimilated into a bigger entity, often losing its independent alliance identity in the process.  

Even after reading FC Okami's words I'm not sure exactly what he is trying to accomplish with these changes. I remember the days before the Phoebe jump fatigue days and force projection was all about zipping around the game beyond your own alliance's or coalition's borders. These changes only affect the territory inside an alliance's borders.

I also wonder about the effect on alliances. With coalitions no longer able to share travel infrastructure between member alliances, I imagine the member corporations of smaller alliances will have an incentive to join the largest alliances. Some of those smaller alliances may choose to WIDOT themselves and break up longstanding relationships. Game designers in the MMORPG genre usually try to build cohesion and social bonds between players in order to increase player retention. I see this change as potentially introducing a mass shakeup of such bonds.

Finally I have to wonder about the logistics pilots out there. No, not the players flying the magic healing ships. The ones who do the day-to-day transporting of goods and perform other services to keep an alliance running. The last I heard running an alliance's logistics department isn't exciting at the best of times. Making their lives miserable sounds more like a horrible experiment rather than promoting sustainable game play.

But, what do I know? I don't live in null sec. I'm sure I'm just ignorant on how everything will play out. At least, I really hope that is the case.