Last weekend we ran our first-ever hot take contest on Just About EVE Online, challenging you all to give us “the boldest takes about the game that could also be credibly held, ones that make you go ‘ooh that’s punchy, but actually…’” and gosh did you rise to the occasion. Our EVE expert Alex Sinclair and myself had a great time going through all of these, so thank you to everyone who participated.

We aim to put together roundup articles (or videos) for bounties that generate a lot of discussion or useful resources, and we had no shortage of material for this one. After your feedback, we’ve taken a more proactive approach to editing and curation this time, but you can still view all submissions in full on the bounty post and find links to them in the article below.

With that, let’s prepare the iced water and lemon-moist napkinettes as we digest your hottest takes on EVE Online, August 2023 edition.

inline(1920x1080):

All images credit *Razorien on Flickr*

Risk is the essence of EVE: your takes on PvP

Opinions on PvP dominated the conversation, with this declaration from EVEIL drawing the most upvotes and the most engagement:

Without non-consensual PvP, EVE would be a dull and lifeless place.

That’s the kind of bold yet challenging statement we were looking for. EVEIL continues:

A common line of thought is that gatecampers, gankers, pirates and even Jita scammers are seen as an infuriating barrier to a perfect EVE. Casual players just want to log in and have fun, without having to worry about losing their ship in space that is supposed to be ‘safe.’

The idea that by destroying a player’s fun (and ship) in PvP they have not agreed to participate in makes the aggressor a bad person, bad for the game, or somehow a coward (come on, it’s a game), baffles me. Without the ever-present danger that life in EVE entails it would just be Grind Online, and to what end? Until you amass enough wealth to satisfy that part of your brain? Quickly followed by browsing Steam for your next challenge.

Non-consensual PvP is the special sauce that gives EVE its je ne sais quoi.

A strong argument, well presented, and lots of you agreed. Swagger Olacar said “undocking is consent to PvP” while Kane Carnifex, in their own winning and well-upvoted submission, took a ‘git gud’ approach:

Don’t play their PvP; [make them play] your PvP… If you play an FPS game and somebody is following you, wait behind a corner, camp them, kill them. Adapt, improve, and overcome your enemies.

Wadd Enderas added “as someone who has very regularly been killed non-consensually, I completely agree”. Can’t say fairer than that.

inline(1920x1080):

Null blocks and giant corps: do they suck?

Null blocks came up in a couple of upvoted replies, but on this topic it seems the takes are more salty than they are spicy (no judgement here; we’re value-neutral on seasoning at Just About). Here’s Wadd Enderas with a take that drew upvotes like scavengers to an unattended jetcan:

CCP loves the null blocks above all else. Looking specifically at the recent (last couple of years) changes in Structures, it feels like every single one makes it harder for a small or solo entity to exist unassisted across New Eden while protecting and expanding what is possible for the huge alliances.

That very same day, Swagger Olacar called and raised with “giant null blocks should not exist” at all. Not even pausing for breath, they re-raised on their very next sentence: “Not only null blocks but any giant organisation.” Why? Swagger explains:

You can’t fight back. You will always be outnumbered at some point in EVE, it happens, we all know it, but it’s one thing to have 40 experienced pilots against 70-100 people that only know how to lock and fire on a target, and a completely different thing to have 40 guys against a 3,000-man coalition. Then the answer becomes ‘just get more people’ or ‘just make your own coalition’, but my question is: why should that be the answer?

CCP Advertises this game as an MMORPG where the political environment is constantly changing. That was true 15 years ago. Now it’s the same coalitions all the time - Imperium, Panfam, WinterCO, and B2 - and eeeeveryone is associated with at least one of them in one way or another.

This touches on another upvoted submission by I-401 entitled - with a terrific sense of drama - ‘the Political Truth of EVE Online’. It argues that the vast blocks that dominate the game aren’t behaving as though they really want to knock each other out, but have agreed to exist in a mutually advantageous state of Orwellian forever war:

One might come to the conclusion that there are multiple groups vying for total dominance, galactic conquest, or defeating their ‘arch enemy’. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Anyone running a big group in a videogame knows you need one thing - players - and everyone enjoys something different. Some merely want to see the world burn in PvP, others want to take on roles of importance and care for a community, but normally it’s a way to get away from the daily monotony and actually ‘do something’.

You can’t be a huge industrialist mass-producing giant warships in real life (unless you have some very questionable ties), but you can in this game! That's why no one is really trying to achieve total dominance: it would destroy the purpose of their existence. You need an enemy that you can use as a boogeyman to make your players excited. Otherwise, why would they play the game if they ‘won’?

And that is why most of these groups are more intertwined than some might like to admit. While some hostilities are genuine, for the most part they are a way to entice their own members to play the game. This is also why most of those political leaders have one thing in common: they have each other in their respective friend lists.

inline(1920x1080):

Mind the nullbears

Those are the comments and themes that saw the most upvotes and engagement, but there were several other winning submissions that also resonated with several of you. Rushlock proposes some clear rules for when cherry picking is acceptable (all good in hostile space, but follow the rules in blue/friendly space), and Ben Rush wants CCP to give you all some stronger incentives to get out of high-sec and into wild space - principally, “space poutine”. Which, to be fair, would work on me.

James lays out four problems with EVE’s famous learning curve, progression, economy, and veteran player engagement. Fortunately, he also proposes four thoughtful solutions. Brother Grimoire relays a nice lore-rich argument from someone named Vinne for enabling local chat by default in high-sec and low-sec, but disabling it in wormhole and null-sec space unless players build appropriate infrastructure:

Nullbears rely on local, so it would be an additional resource sink while adding another level of gameplay.

Alex and I feel this deserved more upvotes, but perhaps it's too thoughtful for a hot take thread?

Many submissions wanted things removed from the game, rather than added. Melicien Tetro says EVE would be healthier without multiboxers, MacGybo wants to live in a high-stakes New Eden with no PLEX Vault “so PLEX has to be moved by ship”, and Alex assures me that Kaiser Friedlich had possibly the boldest take of all by calling for the removal of the kill report API that enables apps like zKillboard. The reasoning:

With access to nearly flawless intelligence on characters, their ships, and friends, the number of potential encounters that never took place is astonishing.

I get it, but… phew. Kudos for entering our hot takes contest in the spirit we intended!

With that, we'll adjourn to get some rice milk to wash down the spice. Thanks once again to everyone who participated, and let us know if you preferred this approach to editing and curation compared with the tales of your first PvP kills or best third-party tools, as this is your community, everything is still very much in flux, and there will be plenty more discussions to have and roundups to write. Until then!