Fweddit - I Blame 'Merica

Operation Huola. Yeah. That seems to be dead in the water now. Lasted about 72 hours.

I blame America. And the Fweddit mission statement, which kind of sums up America.

The Fweddit mission statement is pretty simple: To find good fights. It's not to PvE, it's not to orbit buttons for hours. People don't join Fweddit to do boring shit. There's boring shit to do all over EVE (hello, highsec), so we promise something different and better. If we're going to orbit buttons, then only for the sake of it delivering PvP. We promise fun. And we deliver on that regularly and consistently.

And for awhile, we did find quite a bit of PvP by orbiting buttons. We were ruling the USTZ roost. But when you rule the roost, you demoralize the enemy. When you demoralize the enemy, they stop coming out to play. What you're stuck with is orbiting buttons with no likelihood of PvP. Fweddit lives for PvP, because PvE on its own is not fun.

Around the 48th hour of Operation Huola an FC decided to take a break, to go on a short roam. No substantial fights had happened for a few hours, Late Night had docked up, and he figured the best way to recharge his fleet was to get them a few kills.

What happened is that they ended up in Isbrabata, home to Ushra'Khan [U'K]. We'd already had, with them, two of the best fights we'd had in months, pre-Retribution. The U'K good fights were only continuing post-Retribution. This is not the Late Night/Iron Oxide definition of a good fight -- three-to-one odds -- but a smack down brawl that has no clear outcome until the final minute. That is Fweddit's definition of a good fight.

So, a choice was presented to that FC. Hell, it was presented to all of Fweddit, because word of good fights spreads quickly. Continue orbiting buttons, and getting the odd fight here and there, or start roaming up to Isbrabata and bashing and banging with our new favourite bronemies (portmanteau: bros and enemies.)

And thus Operation Huola had about 24 hours of life expectancy left.

There were still a couple of good fights left in the Huola campaign. The one-hour knockdown stalemate, for example, #yolocolo/Agony/PIE versus Late Night/Ushra'Khan. That was most certainly a good fight, by Fweddit's definition. But that sort of fight happens rarely, not a few times per day.

When it comes to the boring task of PvE plexing, the USTZ doesn't seem to have it in them to do much of it. That's goes equally for Fweddit, iLaw, and Late Night Alliance. You see about as much PvP-less plexing out of Late Night as you do out of Fweddit. The USTZ, for the most part, hates doing that shit.

The people that seem to really get into PvE plexing are EUTZ and the roleplayers.

Why roleplayers put up with orbiting buttons is an easy one. It's in-character. It's what their characters would be driven to do. Further the war effort and all that. At any cost, even if the cost is a lack of PvP and tonne of boredom. Furthering the war effort furthers the story they create for themselves.

As for the Europeans. I just think they've a long view of things. They're able to grasp the big picture. Maybe chalk it up to something cultural. Maybe because they've had long slogs in their past. Two world wars. Hundred year wars. That sort of thing. It's cultural DNA. Victory comes from hunkering down and making the long-term sacrifices. They understand that concept.

Americans, on the other hand, have little patience for the long haul conflict. If they've not won a war in the first ten minutes, then it's not a conflict they should have got involved with. The American cultural experience towards conflict is entirely different from the European cultural experience. Which explains the Fweddit mission statement: to get good fights. It's not about long-term objectives, it's about this moment right now and what can we get out of it.

So, occasionally Fweddit gets it in their craw that they can do long-term, forgetting that long-term has a shelf life of about 72 hours. They want their marathons to still be sprints. We're certainly capable of an actual marathon, we just don't seem to have the patience to actually complete one.

So, we're back to where we were. Holding what we have, looking out for the good fights. As a rallying cry, as motivation to log on and get in fleets, Operation Huola served it purpose. As anything beyond that, well, not so much.

In a few weeks, Fweddit might come up with some new long-term objective. Of course, after 72 hours, we'll set it aside because to declare "Mission Accomplished!" was going to take longer than 72 hours.

Fweddit. We're terrible at marathons, but we kick ass at the sprint.