The Moment that Falls Between

Fiddler's Edge has had quite a run.

This is the one hundred fiftieth post for this site and, while that is hardly a match for my more productive colleagues, for me it is a significant mile marker. This last year has seen a lot of change in New Eden, and by the look of things there's plenty more to come.

Nullsec has been shaken up, though so far this is only the existing nullsec club members trading deck chairs in first class while the rest of us watch from steerage. A large supercapital fleet is still the cost of entry for nullsec and only those holding the vast wealth nullsec bestows can afford them. The only way a young and hungry alliance can establish themselves in nullsec is to attach themselves as vassals to one of the existing powers. Unfortunately most of those slots are filled by formerly storied nullsec alliances that are now little more than retainers for the two or three large powers that hold sway in sovereign space these days.

With any luck, the nullsec center will not hold and in the chaos that follows the barbarians will loot the vast hoards of ISK and warehouses of supercaps. I hope to see a bit more of a free-for-all in nullsec by the latter half of 2012. 

Change is coming to lowsec as well. Pirates and griefers are forever, but I think as lowsec becomes more valuable we'll see a consolidation of power in certain pockets of that space. Some of those pockets will be carebears carving out a places to build industrial empires. Others will be groups of pirates banding together to form criminal cartels that provide protection in exchange for a percentage off the top. Not that this portends the death of small gang PvP by any means. Rixx Javix and his naughty ilk will still be there, happily podding each other and the unlucky stranger who wanders across their path. But I expect lowsec will become a much more diverse, textured slice of Eve-play.

However, those will all be tales for another to tell.

This seems a fitting time to gather up the used tea cups and the left-over cucumber sandwiches, sweep the crumbs from the table and put away the good silver. Even high tea with Mord has to end sometime. I said my farewells a year ago and won't repeat them now. Suffice it to say that those of you who've kept coming back to wade through the walls of text here at The Edge have been great company these last two years. Thanks to you all and I'll see you in game.

Fly true.