Crown Fire

Null sec is often called an “ecosystem”. Dominion sov was considered a solved system. The null blocks functioned like keystone species, and after time without much change or disturbance, the null empires lived fat off their infrastructure. However, this infrastructure was only functional thanks to the system itself. Nullsec offered a series of challenges and most of those challenges were solved. Under this system, the best solution was more: more pilots, bigger ships, more timers. Winners were the best able to adapt to an environment of TiDi, node crashes, and blobs.

For years the community cried for a new system, one that did not allow for the current tactics to be superior to all others. However, the best way to do that is to punish those very tactics and emphasize others. The new environmental pressures will shape the ecosystem and if changed gradually enough, might not even be destabilizing to the life within.

For the next part I need to ask you to stick with me, we are still talking about EVE Online and not some nature blog. With that said:

Fire is caused when rapid oxidation causes matter to release high amounts of energy. One of the most destructive forms of fire is known as a crown fire. When humans began controlling their environment and sculpting it, one of the things they did was to prevent and protect against damage, including fire. The woods around humans were defended from naturally occurring fires. So ecosystems that normally saw burns annually would now go for decades in between burns. This had the effect of allowing more vegetation to grow into lush forests. However, this build up meant there was more energy (plant matter) than ever was meant to be, in particular in the leafy canopies.

Eventually fire came and quickly spread to the lush, energy-rich leaves. These crown fires rage out of control, outstripping the trees’ natural defenses against burns. They often leave nothing but devastation in their wake; disrupting everyone and everything around. However, from these ashes rises new life, and a new ecosystem grows. New species work their way up, and adapt to the changes in their environment. A new type of ecosystem emerges to match the challenge of the new environment.

A crown fire rages through New Eden’s nullsec population. But instead of heat, it is rage. The old guard with their old ways are struggling under the pressure of the burn. The new system does not contain the same challenges, and is far from perfect. Someone has yet to explain to me how it isn’t short lived Faction Warfare campaigns with only large complexes. The goal of the sov system was to create a different kind of sov, and in a way it did. However this new way will require new tactics to conquer.  

But the fire is too hot, and it is consuming more than it should. The Jump Changes Roundtable devolved because an interaction between CCP saying “trust us”, and the players saying “we don’t because of these changes that we have seen in Phoebe and Aegis”. Change is happening, but we choose how hot to let our tempers get.

CCP has come a long way with communication, and this could be a defining moment for EVE Online if we as a community can either give honest, constructive feedback, and trust the features will work out, and CCP shows us that their new release system allows them to be nimble enough to adapt feedback into what everyone wants out of the feature: to be fun.