One of the most exciting elements of EVE Online is the very robust player corporation system and the subsequent war system. A player corporation can declare war on any other player corporation simply by paying 50 million ISK (ISK is the currency in EVE) to CONCORDE, the policing agency in the EVE Universe. Once war is declared a week long period of CONCORDE free battle ensues where any player in either corp can attack the other corps players without any CONCORDE involvement.
My main character, Arkanis VonBerra, is in the player corporation EVE University (E-UNI). E-UNI is just about the coolest idea I’ve come across in EVE. The name really says it all. EVE University is a corporation setup to help new players learn the game. As I’ve mentioned before, EVE has a steep learning curve so this is a wonderful service to provide for new players. However, because E-UNI is a corporation populated by new players it is also a frequent target for war declarations by pirate corporations who want to pad their kill boards.
Currently E-UNI has just entered the second week of the current war and I believe the seventh week out of the last eight of continuous wars. Now for the folks that dig the pew-pew, this is very exciting but for people like myself who get more excited about mining and market manipulation it’s kind of a drag. During wars, E-UNI halts all mining ops and mission running and control rolls to Silentbrick who manages their military fleet.
This sort of griefing — and it is griefing although not illegal in the game — is very stifling for E-UNI because it keeps them from running any sort of meaningful class schedule. I think in the long run a revamp of the war system will be needed to make wars in high-sec more relevant but until then E-UNI must carry on.