The State of Play

EVE Online is a pretty lonely place if you let it be. Idling away in your own corporation, mining rocks or shooting NPC's whilst you grind out enough ISK to subscribe your account or buy the next shiney thing you can fly is no way to play the game. You'll soon get disenfranchised and disinterested, your activity will plummet and before long you'll have let your account unsubscribe as you pursue other interests. I don't think this is a revelation, but we've all seen those players. They're out there, trying to make EVE the single player game that it clearly is not.

Thankfully, most of the player base know this, congealing themselves into groups of like minded individuals, some small, some unbelievably massive and volatile. To keep these groups successful the leaders have to be content creators for their members, whether that be a mining operation or a Null Sec roam, group interaction has to be created if it is to coalesce reliably and turn into something more. A key ingredient is of course recruitment because, as a leader, if you can't recruit you have nothing to lead. It is quite literally the oxygen of any successful, long term corporation. You can survive on a core group of players for a while, but without recruitment it will certainly wilt and die before too long.

A similar thing happened with Sudden Buggery, to an extent. We had a very good, active core group of veterans; recruits came and went. Some for longer than others, occasionally finding a diamond in the rough; sometimes finding the most annoying voice you've ever bared witness to. However, at some point the recruiting effort waned, then some core members grew less active or had real life commitments intrude on their EVE time and, before you know it, we're packing up shop. In the process of withdrawing we had some blap Phoenix Dreadnaughts that needed to die, so we called in Drop Bears to help us with that. The first time didn't pan out so well for the BAERS, but the next time around they died gloriously, in Bob's honour. As BAERS are an AU TZ Wormhole Corporation they seemed like a good option to move to. Arrangements were made upon leaving Sudden Buggery and applications were sent. Said applications then went totally unanswered which was quite surprising considering we had been actively pursued initially. After a week or more of uncertainty I said "screw it" and pulled the plug on EVE entirely for a few months, pouring my time into World of Warships instead, but all the while keeping a keen eye on the going ons of the EVE Universe knowing full well I'd be back.

So I'm back. A somewhat jaded wormholer looking to find that most elusive of groups, an AU TZ active Wormhole corporation. My first thoughts had been Haywire; we've done several operations together and they're a great group of guys, many of whom I spent time with in my heady CFC days. Thank fuck that insanity ended quickly. Null Sec just isn't my bag, baby. Unfortunately however, Haywire had been subject to yet another DURA LEXX invasion and, as it was told to me, they well and truly had their donuts punched. Evicted from their home they hooked up with No Vacancies, a large Wormhole group with, until Haywire came along, only a small AU TZ contingent. So I suppose that's an option to explore, isn't it? They've got in excess of 200 members, allowing for alts that's probably less than 100 actual meat bods, then allowing for time zones maybe a dozen active around down time? That would suit me, small gang engagements are by far the most fun, so I guess an application is in order.

First impressions were good, their public channel was active and one of their recruiters directed me to their online application form. So I completed it and went back to setting up my alts in their PI farm. Now, I know when you've just re-opened recruiting the glut of applications may get overwhelming and that's certainly a good problem to have, but a week has passed and I've not heard "boo" from NVACA. APIs need to be checked, corp history has to be examined, that's understood. But not a single word in a week? Something is amiss. You naturally start asking questions and the answers aren't encouraging. I'm not the only one who has been stone walled, which I suppose is good, it's clearly nothing personal, but it brings into doubt whether or not you've made the right choice. I've no interest in throwing my hat in with a group that is largely inactive, after all. More concerning to me however, as I alluded to earlier, is that it shows a distinct lack of leadership. Without leadership, the content creators of any corporation, you may as well just be idling in your own corporation and keep an eye on the Wormhole PvP channel for when danger calls. But I'm not giving up on them yet, all of this could have a perfectly logical explanation, even if the indications so far aren't confidence building.

Hell, if things don't improve I may find myself in LowSec...