I’ve been away a while and of all the strange things to bring me back it was installing Eve Echoes and remembering how much I love and miss Eve Online. So here I am. I’ve been reading these forums for the past week or two and I’ve seen an immense level of barely controlled rage directed at basically everyone.
Granted, that’s somewhat par for the course here and in many games in general with forums. I suppose they attract a certain kind of person to them. Passionate about the game and their thoughts related to it, often to the point of seeing all other points of view as wholly invalid and thus worthy of mocking and ridicule.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing usually but it feels like this community is on the precipice of an exploding volcano and I wonder if any of you even notice it. I’ve seen insults that clearly break the spirit (and the letter) of the rules becoming commonplace and fully ignored. There’s barely a single thread I’ve read where people aren’t attacking people instead of ideas.
We’re dealing with a lot this year. Stress is high for vast numbers of people, the world over. Many legitimate irl reasons. Add to that what feels like (to me, recently returned), a void from the devs (who once were a very responsive part of this community in an iteration before these current forums) and I wonder if resentment is building up. And I wonder how it has affected the game itself.
This is not a troll post and I hope it won’t be viewed as such. If anything, I hope it might lead to some self-reflection and perhaps a renewed desire to interact in a more positive way with your fellow capsuleers. I’m sure that’s asking a lot and I can imagine some of the responses. Some of you may argue it’s always been this way, but it feels more personal, more ugly somehow.
And do we really need more toxicity? I’d argue we need a reminder that we’re here because we love this game, despite our own personal complaints about this or that, and at the end of the day, that’s what makes this community special. And it is special, and you know it is special. We all know it is.
I know, some awfully flowery words. Puke!! Just remember, one way or another, this is one of the most difficult years any of us have ever experienced and the stress and disruption it has caused in our daily lives is most certainly adding an ever-increasing undercurrent of even shorter fuses. Everything from months of isolation to lost jobs and homes and even hunger for many are far more widespread than we tend to think about. It’s bad out there.
Let’s try to be a little more generous to one another here. We can shoot each other in the game to let off that excess steam. My thoughts, for whatever they’re worth. (And yes, it’s not necessarily easy to click post on this, but thank you for listening.)
o7
