Tuesday 23 June 2015

A defence of Brave

As reddit explodes in response to the latest Brave drama I posted a defence of us on reddit that I'd like to repeat here. If you know anyone who is just starting Eve and wondering whether to join Brave you may want to link them to this post.



There was an alignment chart posted about Eve alliances based on Dungeons & Dragons which had E Uni as Lawful Good, RvB as Neutral Good and Brave Newbies as Chaotic Good. I think that's very accurate.

E Uni offers structure and organisation. They are excellent at the education side of the game and might suit a more reflective player who wants to learn Eve in almost an academic way. They think before they leap.

RvB is a frigate bloodbath. It's all about the pvp. Most new players are best to make some isk, buy 50 cheap frigates, join RvB and pvp your heart out until you're out of frigates then drop alliance and go make isk in safety. It's not safe generally to do missions or mine while with a RvB tag because war targets will kill you. It's kind of one dimensional (or was when I was in it) in that it is purely about the pvp.

Brave is chaos. We are by far the most actively engaged entity in nullsec. There is a continuous 24 hour defence fleet using whatever ship you feel like and FCed by whoever is speaking at the time. In addition we have lots of strat ops and roams and form fleets to take on people who bring fleets to our space for fights.

Brave doesn't suit everyone but for the people that it does suit it's perfect. It's continuous violence with almost no restrictions on your behaviour or on what you fly.

Additionally Brave has a superb teaching and coaching division that operates pretty separately from everything else and helps newbies with patience and generosity.

Brave pays a price for its unrestricted style - we have a lot of people, both our enemies and our own guys stirring up drama for the sake of it. There's always drama. Sometimes it gets too much and can get a bit depressing but it always blows over.

The unique selling point of Brave is that it has more action than pretty much anyone else - in terms of people flying to our space to kill us, in terms of people posting crazy stuff, in terms of our own guys forming fleets and creating content.

One criticism of Brave is that it burns out newbies. I'm sure it does - if you're the wrong type of newbie. If you like structure and calm Brave will make you uninstall your client.

I think the key thing though is that a newbie has options and there really is a corp for everyone. I haven't even yet mentioned excellent newbie corps like PH, KF, Dreddit, Redemption Road - all listed on the sidebar or look in /r/evenewbies or /r/evejobs.

Eve has a wonderful and diverse community and Brave fills an important place in adding to that diversity. A lot of Eve is, frankly, rather dull.

So if you're new my advice is this. Shop around, try several different corps and insist on finding a community that's not just adequate but wonderful.

And because people are all made different Brave, even with all our flaws our craziness our disasters and sudden crises, really is the perfect corp for some people.

3 comments:

  1. It is difficult.

    I really love flying in defence fleet. Brave HQ has been the busiest place of Eve for a long time and there is non-stop action. The non-organised nature allows me to step in and out and engage at my own terms without having to worry about blocking multiple hours of time. Also nobody holds me accountable for not joining fleets if I am traveling for work for a few weeks.

    There is a problem though. I do not identify with our so called leadership at all. I think many of the proclaimed values are a farce and we lack any form of direction. I do not like Lychton, I do not like Cagali and I do not like many of the FCs and Mildirs. I am a pretty idealistic guy and I like to stand up for the values I believe in.

    So I have two conflicting paths... the actual small-scale pvp experience in the busiest nullsec system of Eve and the political agenda of the organisation I am part of.

    Of course the proper answer is "step up and do things better". I fully agree, but I am not a student anymore (then I did that in other games). I want to enjoy my limited time in Eve and not make it a second job.

    How to solve that dilemma? Just stay and avoid politics - or take action and quit?

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    Replies
    1. In my opinion you should definitely shop around. Spend a week or two in each of the alliances that you think might appeal to you then come back if it turns out the grass wasn't greener.

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