Ructions abound in EVE at the moment, mostly due to a kind of ideological crisis among the other folks in my current Corp, and it's all quite fascinating to watch in my usual capacity of peripheral lurker.

We're a fairly typical kind of corp, much like a thousand others in the game - small but not tiny, active but not obsessive, casual but keen. I'm mostly there because one of my RL friends is in it, to be honest, but they're decent enough folks. There's something of a low-grade recruiting drive happening of late though, and while the numbers are up, so now, are the expectations, as these new folk look to the established leadership for orders, purpose and direction, in a game where people often have trouble finding those things for themselves.

Me? I'm easy, and generally do my own thing anyway - Agent 4 missions on the whole. I help out now and then if asked, but few actually ask - pride and all...you know. There's organised mining nights now and then, but I'm terribly busy with miscellaneous "RL Commitments " those nights, so never attend those. I like to think that the tax levied by the corp on all my in-game earnings (sales, bounties, mission rewards, etc), which is currently 10% I think, more than makes up for my lack of effort in more hands-on activities, and I pull my weight in that manner.

I'm not even sure what happens to the minerals that get mined on those nights - sold on the market I think, to earn the corp more money, which is all fair enough, but lately this continual and purposeless generic accumulation of corporate cash for not better reason than to have a high 'score', seems to be making some of the membership a bit restless. Questions are being asked. Where are we (the corp) going? What are our goals? What is our Vision?

These kinds of questions are becoming debate on the forums now, and it's clear that different people see the corp as different things. In particular is The Lure of 0.0. A lot of members, especially the newer/younger ones, seem to have this idea that unless your corp is carving a piece of the 0.0 frontier, you're not really playing properly - not successful. I don't see what the fuss is personally, but it's a commonly held view. Comfort Zone = Bad, apparently, and we all ought to be out there, night after night, gorging on Arkanor Asteroids until we're physically sick, which is one way to play, certainly.

Mind you, I've been out there, if only briefly, and one thing I did come away with, is that while it's relatively easy for one lone survivalist to function out there, (although hard work), it's nigh on impossible for a whole corp to lurk out there and get anything useful done. The first time the map lights up with 5+ pilots in a system, who the region's feudal ownership didn't approve, the posse will be there to investigate very quickly. Ignoring the soloist ratting 'vermin' is one thing, but a large-scale unauthorised mining op is tantamount to invasion and is likely to be treated as such.

So those moths still entranced by the naked flame of '0.0 Presence' will need to do it Properly - humbly ask permission from the Barons, and pay the appropriate tithe, and most likely, join the owning Alliance in question. So the debates move on to whether we should join an Alliance, or start one. Pride, independence, a natural unwillingness to be subservient, all these things now come into play, and exaggerated notions of our own importance arise. I'm not sure what we'd have to offer an Alliance in the capacity of minions, let alone what we'd have to offer as inspirational High Command for an entirely new Alliance, and in any event, Alliances cost a lot of money to start and run.

It's not all new faces in the corp however, and many are actually grizzled 0.0 veterans, who have deliberately joined our kind of corp for a quiet life - a lifestyle where it's not required to be on standby 24/7 and to throw ship after ship at invading blob-fleets. They've been there, done it and got the T-Shirt, and really can't be bothered with it all again. There are attractions to a corp that does not push it's members, or make demands, and where the high-point of the gaming week is to descend on a 0.9 Sec asteroid belt like drunken locusts and talk bollocks about how great 1980s kid's TV shows were, on Gang Chat for three amiable hours. A different pace, and for some of these folks, it doesn't even matter what the minerals are then to be used for.

For these players, goals for the corp, if needed at all, are more modest - Capital Ship Production, a POS Tower (singular), Tech 2 Invention perhaps - little things to dabble in, to create an illusion of going forward, where no 'progress' is really sought, or needed. It's a social club, with pretty screen-saver, and why not? Both styles of gameplay are equally supported in EVE. Trouble only comes when a corp, guild, call it what you like, doesn't all want to do play it the same way.

The questions are being asked now, and will probably demand answers, and either way, some of the corp aren't going to be happy, and will probably leave to find a corp who does do things the way they want. It's all perfectly natural, I guess - a kind of asexual division, based on ideology and vision. I expect this applies equally to guilds in other MMOs...mergings and spiltings, all based on directions and purpose...

As for me? Well, I only play for maybe three or four hours a week anyway, so don't feel engaged enough in the game itself, to be in any position to start soapboxing on forums, but I'm not that fussy. As long as I can chat now and then, and get the occasional wingman for my more tricky Agent 4s, it's all good. I suspect any Directives, Orders, Targets or Quotas issued down from On High that disrupt my usual playstyle too greatly will find me drifting away to some NPC Corp though. I'm a terrible guild-member really, and have particular trouble with arbitrarily assigned figures of authority in MMOs. A Guildleader tag, or Level 70 badge, is all very well, but we've all paid the same $9.95 to be there in the first place. Except Micropayment MMOs...that's where it all falls down really. Ho hum.

Anyway, I suspect inertia and apathy will win the day in our corp, and ultimately, not a lot will change. The interesting bit will be seeing who isn't happy with plodding on as usual and who goes looking for a Greater Purpose elsewhere...