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Where have all the great Eve writers gone?

EVE online used to inspire the best writing about games. The sandbox universe of New Eden gave rise to a million stories and the uncompromising ruthlessness of the game ensured that many of those stories were worth reading. Epic stories like the Guiding Hand Social Club's meticulous evsiceration of Ubiqua Seraph  caught the attention of main stream media but I have always enjoyed more mundane stories of the day to day experiences of capsuleers: tales of piracy and revenge, tales of exploration and discovery, tales of incompetence and mastery. I myself was never more than a very casual EVE player and yet it inspired some of my own favourite writing

Where have all these great EVE blogs gone? Some stalwarths like Wilhelm over at the Ancient Gaming Noob  still write regularly about the game but these are stories of participating in mega alliances and huge wars. This seems to have become a feature of EVE writing lately. The politics of mega alliances dominates everything and gripping tales of the achievements and failures of individual capsuleers don't feature. If you want plenty of examples of the worst of EVE writing head over to Reddit's r/eve. There is a mega-war on in EVE at the moment and this reddit sub is filled with partisan tales and boasting that is unreadable for an outsider.

The last Eve blog that really gripped me was Doyce Testerman's series about "Life in Wormhole" . Wormholes are the most remote and most uncontrollable environments in EVE so back in 2012 when Doyce was wormholing there was still plenty of room for stirring tales of individual exploits.

Why aren't there still great EVE blogs about individual capsuleers? I can think of a a few possible reasons but I am not sure which if any of them are the real reason:

1. It is possibe the game has been running so long that there are no new stories to tell.
2. It is possible that the decline of EVE blogging is just a reflection of the decline of game blogging generally.
3. It is possible that EVE has changed from being a game of individual efforts and small groups to a game of mega-alliances and power blocs. The efforts of individuals are no longer relevant and no longer worth writing about.

of course there is also a more hopeful possibiliy:

4. It is possible that there are still players out there writing great indivudal stories that I haven't found yet. Please let this be the case and if you know of such writing then please direct me to it.
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Comments

Wilhelm Arcturus said…
EVE blogs are kind of funny. If I look closely, I always seem to find a few new ones have popped up since last I checked. But most of them just last for a season or two then fade. It is a very nomadic subject if you are trying to keep up with the smaller stories.
10:03 pm
mbp said…
Hi Wilhelm. Well done to you for sticking with it for so long. Yes Eve blogs have always come and gone but recently there seems to be far more gone than come.
7:15 am
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