Just for the Uniforms

I didn’t play much EVE this weekend, so some of the scheming I was planning was put on a back burner. There were two Tier 5 pushes this weekend. Minmatar’s general militia did a quick push on Friday, and the Gallente pushed the next day.

Weekend Tier 5 pushes have become the ‘thing’ in Faction War now. I wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing a pattern, with various militias ‘taking turns’ at this point.

I’ve somewhat put off discussing game mechanics for the time being. There is such a thing as analyzing things too much, and just like sometimes when making certain food dishes and finding out what’s in them makes you not like them as much, finding out the beneath-the-hood nuts and bolts of Faction War hasn't exactly been making me enjoy Faction War as of late.

Sometimes, I wonder if the community’s expectation for Faction War are even that realistic. There are some things that no amount of mechanics tweaking can change. No amount of plex changes can force people to pvp. No amount of flipping around the payouts will make people care about sovereignty. CCP can’t force people to join the ‘losing side’ and they can’t completely prevent people from farming.



CCP can provide all the tools, but when push comes to shove, you’re not going to get more pvp if you don’t undock from your home station. Plex farmers will not have more risk if pvpers never come after them, and the only ‘meaning’ that we will ever really get in Faction War is what we create for ourselves.

And, I wonder how many of the old excuses will be there, even after Retribution. “I don’t hunt plexers because they just run away.” “There’s no point in trying to take the warzone because the mechanics are stacked against us.” “What’s the point, when you can’t just put an alt in the winning side and make all this ISK you want?” “I don’t care anymore.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to imply that Faction War is a hopeless cause. But, I look back on some of the things that make Faction War great, and CCP and game mechanics don’t have a lot to do with it for me. I’m not here for a free wardec. Or for the sovereignty, or for the ISK.  And I’m not going to leave if they break plexes, or don’t reduce farming as much as I’d like.

I JUST CAME HERE FOR THE COOL RED UNIFORMS! Haha…Just kidding.

The Faction War community is one of the greatest groups of people I have had the pleasure of flying with, and having been my share around the block in EVE that’s saying a lot. So long as you’re having fun, and doing it with people you enjoy, who cares if the warp-in is 10K from the button or 20K?

As one of my wisest corpmates said, “we’ll just keep doing what we’ve always done.”

So, I’m going to let other people worry about the details for a while, and start focusing on some other stuff for a while.

Speaking of other stuff, I have a few fun projects I’ve been working on. When I’m not roaming around blowing things up, I’ve been fitting out some new ships I’ve never flown before, including the Hookbill and the Sentinel. I have decided that flying the same things all the time is boring, and have started to beef up my hanger a little bit by fitting out a few things I’ve had kicking around.

My alliance shop is expanding, but thankfully I set things up in an organized fashion from the beginning, so it’s been pretty easy to maintain. Since I now sell to other Minmatar, I guess it’s more of a militia shop, than an alliance shop. I really wish they allowed militia wide contracts similar to alliance contracts. It would make things a lot simpler.

I’m thinking of adding some new ships to the regularly stocked stuff, but we’ll see. It takes a lot of liquid ISK to keep something like that going on any level, so I have to be careful not to go overboard and end up with a bunch of stuff no one is going to fly. (I’ll probably write more about militia shops later.)

I’ve also jumped back into trading a lot more than I have previously. Though I’m not making nearly the margins as I was in nullsec when I was trading like a maniac, nor do things seem to move as fast as they did then, I am having fun dabbling in it again. I always enjoyed trading for some reason. So many people say it’s boring but I find it to be an easy passive income, and somewhat relaxing. Though, I don’t do it nearly at all in as organized fashion as I should.

Anyway, off to find some dinner.