Welcome to the Blob, and The Word on FW changes.

Here it is ladies and gentlemen: the moment you've all been waiting for (trust me, you've been waiting for it, even if you didn't know it). The one and only Galdornae has started a blog.

Since I have no idea what this blog is actually going to be about, let's go over some familiar ground, shall we?

FW changes and what they mean to me.

One of the greatest things about FW to me, has always been the PVP for PVP's sake. I loved the fight club. I loved simply being able to undock and get a in a fight. By and large, casual PVP is what FW has always been up until this point, with system occupancy being essentially an RP thing (which is fine by the way; as much as I love to troll RPers, they have a place in Eve just as much as I do). I joined FW shortly after I started playing Eve, and have been in 3 out of the 4 militia's since (just need Gallente for the set). I have had hundreds of great fights in FW, and by and large, I feel it has served me well. As a solo pilot, it has provided a nice hunting ground, as well as a nice fat free wardec to make people want to shoot me in the face.

So what went wrong?

In a word: stagnation.

When you fight the same people over and over and over again you learn what they do, what they can and will bring to a given fight, and what you should and should not fight. This goes both ways: the Minmatar learned the Amarr, and the Amarr learned the Minmatar. Fights became effectively scripted, with casual PVP turning into an endless dance of reshipping games. Other times, neither side seemed to really have much interesting in even logging in, much less undocking.

In a perfect world, we would still be able to PVP for PVP's sake, and the biggest concern would getting that "good fight" and preserving a sustainable balance of combat.

Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. The warzone did stagnate. The availability of fights - any fights, dried up. Many people left. Many more considered leaving. -

On a side note, I believe the sense of community provided by the alliances that have been made on the Minmatar side (specifically Late Night and Iron Oxide) is one of the main reasons for the current numbers imbalance. The Minmatar managed to hang together despite their differences (heck, go back a few months and KPP and Autoz were at war with each other, now we're in an alliance together). I'm not too familiar with current internal politics on the Amarr side, so I can't speak to what might have gone wrong for them, but I can say that the Alliances on the Minmatar side have kept us together. Kept us blobby. Whatever you want to call it.

Anyway, where was I? Right, the warzone stagnated. So the only real solution was to introduce incentives and/or penalties. Goal oriented PVP, however, means a whole new ballgame. Getting a good fight becomes a lower priority (with any luck still a priority), and objectives like holding onto your systems becomes a higher priority.

Would I love to still have the fightclub? Absolutely. In the absence of a viable fightclub though, I want something. Something fun. Something worth logging in for.

Will I stay in FW no matter what? No way. If things don't suit me I'm outta here. The grass is always greener and all that.

Am I willing to give it a try? Hell yeah. Lets do this. Come shoot me.

I will fight you one on one. I will fight you in the blobs. I will fight you on the beaches.