The Dust Affect

People keep saying Dust isn't affecting us and we don't care but it doesn't look like it will work that way.  My introduction to being in a place that CCP has labeled a front line roll out for their newest project has been interesting to say the least. I had not paid any attention to Dust other than trying it out until I heard the whispers that Molden Heath was going to be the focus of the next stage of Dust to Eve integration.

On the Dust forums CCP FoxFour posted the reasons Molden Heath was selected:

Comparing the two of those left us with Molden Heath for the following reasons:

• There is less high security space breaking things up; the three low security systems in Solitude shown at the bottom of the Dotlan map don't even have temperate planets.
• Molden Heath has more varying stratigic value with systems hidden away behind other systems with no temperate planets. Attrition means those will be harder to take.
• Molden heath is cleaner and easier for us to show on the new infographic map. Something to consider when it is the first and only region out the gate and the one that will be the most viewed.
• Molden Heath is also more active from the EVE side of things.

I was staring at a map of Molden Heath counting moons and horrified to discover that Klingt has three temperate planets. No other system in Molden Heath has that. And it has a level five agent. That explains the alliance that has decided to move in there. Until CCP announced the District thing no one cared about Temperate planets. It was things like Plasma planets and the more rare types that had some contest over them for PI (planetary interaction). This map was made by Dust players I believe and stolen from this thread.

Klingt was my home for the last year. The corp slowly migrated over to Bosena in December after Retribution was released and to fill the void left by Gunpoint going mostly inactive and 7-2 deploying off to other areas. 7-2 has moved back in and some member's of Gunpoint are back. In general though, Molden Heath has always been an active pirate area and Bosena has been on fire for the last few months.

Per the Dev post above, we brought it on ourselves by playing and exploding all the things. There are pros and cons to it. There are more targets but those targets have brought with them larger and larger fleets. Fleets of thirty and forty with 3-7 logistics ships roam around expecting to find... I don't know what to be honest. But that is the type of group we are finding now. It changes things. It changes tactics. It changes approaches. It changes decisions.

It is odd to think of Klingt as not home anymore. It's not bad but it isn't the same with a hostile force with several hundred members lives there. After living in a world where having 10 corpmates on was almost everyone it is a startling difference. I like my small gangs. A handful of people working in a coordinated effort to achieve the goal is pleasurable to me. I think the largest fleet I've ever been in had 39 or 40 people in it. But not living there means asset protection is hard. Razor lost his POS for the simple fact that with that many people they can plink at it all day every day and we can fight but in the end it is going to come down.

But one loses assets. The moment a POS is deployed you know that you may lose it. I've been on a number of POS thefts now where we have snatched them as they are taken down. Such is life in Eve. One does not always win and always reach ones objectives.

It does make me wonder about CCPs concept of small groups in Eve. I commented, at Fanfest that giving more goodies would potentially only bring in the large groups who would absorb them into their massive whole. More moons are being added but that does not mean that suddenly small groups will have some type of moon goo income. It just means large groups will absorb all of the worthwhile moons again. With the power projection that exists in game at this moment there is nothing a small group can do but watch and accept that 'this type of asset is not for us'.

"Bring friends." It is often the answer given. Is it also the planned answer? There was some discussion about how can smaller entities hold their ground? I have to say, I don't know. Not without hard coded limiters and those only take away from the game as a whole. But a game that rewards numbers will always reward numbers at the end. It is not bad it is just what it is. If that is where things are going, I understand. Numbers make stories and make the news.

Yet, those of us who find no pleasure in numbers will continue to do our thing. I like a niche area and small gangs seems to be one. One thing playing Eve teaches you is that things don't and won't always work out. Even if they should. Even if you really want them to. I left fanfest with a bit of a feeling of weight smothering the future of small groups. Seeing all of the larger groups together reminded me of how very, very small some of us are.

But our size is also a strength such as our opponents size is also a weakness. Challenges draw us into this game. With a target rich environment and new and creative ways to do things the molds are breaking and people are getting drawn into the new situations. On one side there is the desire for the easy things that we are used to. But, at the same time, that is what leads to boredom and unsubbing. Problems, situations, frustrations  complexity, achievement  and failure are what draw us in. it is what makes the win so sweet and the loss a true blow. It is the type of thing that addicts the player base even as it irritates them.

And spaceships.

As for Dust 5124, it is affecting things. CCP has won there. Even some of the bitterest members of the Eve player base are having to take notice.

P.S.
I'd also like to see the result of my own pet theory that temperate low sec planet moons will be getting their fair share of moon minerals.