A long, long time ago, I still remember…
Back when Freighters came out, the only way to get them from Null Sec to High Sec and back was to gate them the whole way. I was a member of Eve Defense Force, Ascendant Frontier back then, and every week or so, there would be a “Freighter Op.”
Every freighter pilot in the alliance would gather into a convoy, and the rest of the alliance would all form a fleet to web and protect them.
It never failed, somewhere along our path we’d be attacked, sometimes multiple fleets would attack us. It was our alliance vs. the world in some ways (and I’m sure it was that way for every alliance moving convoys of freighters).
What I loved about it, was everything I love(d) about eve. It was community! It was content! It was the whole alliance working together in unison, fleet operations, every week (or so). We were not just a bunch of people working together, we were an alliance in the true sense of the word.
While I wouldn’t ask nor expect CCP to nurf or get rid of Jump Freighters, Blockade Runners, nor Carriers and Titans, etc. I would ask them to try and find a way to bring the community(ies) back together that way. To give us a reason to have to form fleets and work together every week, that doesn’t punish the individuals, but rewards those who want to be part of a group by forcing us to work together as a group.
Eve should be for the individual (Missions, Faction Warfare, High Sec Hauling corporations, etc.)
But Eve should also be for the ‘guild’ for the group, for those who come to MMOs seeking to be forced to work together, so we can form bonds, find battle-buddies, and forge friendships.
Sure, there’s fleet ops now, but they’re either whaling fleets which is really just a form of trolling, or we attack other people’s I-Hubs, and really have no idea what’s going on. “Need to know biases,” type stuff. And while it’s fine for some people, even myself, to go on a mission and have no idea why we did what we did, it’s another thing to go on a mission and protect your convoy of freighters. You can see what you’re doing, know what you’re protecting, it’s right there. It was like Football, your team moving the ball closer to the goal, and almost always another team was there to try and block you.
I miss that.