While most EVE Online players casually use wormholes to get places faster, there is a small community who choose to live in them permanently. Starting Monday, December 12, players interested in W-Space will be able to convene at the newly revamped /r/wormholers subreddit.
One of the mods-to-be driving this effort, OpusMagnum, sat down with me to chat about the coming subreddit as well as wormholes in general. He wanted to share his experiences with what type of gameplay they have delivered and why he believes a more specialized subreddit would benefit the players. With so many old and new players visiting EVE, this might be a great place to find a group of like-minded players or start fresh in a new part of the universe.
An interesting event happened mid-way through our conversation where news broke that his alliance, The Last Chancers, decided to disband. Just like with actual businesses, EVE corporations must face the question of whether they are delivering value to their shareholders. OpusMagnum had some insight that you will read about how to view a disbanding in a positive light, and not let it curb enjoyment of a game.
What is your in-game name and what do you do?
My in game name is OpusMagnum. I am currently a line member and recruiter for The Last Chancers. We live in a C4 wormhole with a C4 and C5 static. Although, that will change after this week as Hard Knocks are evicting us. I mainly prefer PVP. I also am a moderator over at the soon to relaunch /r/wormholers subreddit.
[Editors note: Wormhole-types are classified on a system of C1 through C6. As the number increases, so does the risk and reward of what lies within. This scale works opposite of system security, where lower levels indicate higher risk and reward, from High Sec at 1.0, to Null Sec at 0.0]
How long has your corp lived in this current WH?
The Last Chancers have always lived in WH space since their introduction into EVE Online. In the beginning, they started out in a C2 then moved up to a C3 , then bounced around from C6 to C6 for awhile doing capital combat. This particular C4 we have lived in for 18 months.
What do people do in wormholes? There are a lot of new players who might not be aware of why people choose this style of gameplay.
There are a lot of things to do in WH space. You can do exploration by running relic and data sites. You can do gas cloud harvesting. There is PVE sleeper (the WH rat type) sites to run. PI, Mining. Basically anything in what we call Known Space [any non-WH system], you can do you can also do in Wormholes. While it makes you more money, there is also more risk due to there not being a local chat to show you who else is in system.
What would you say differentiates WH combat? What do Wormhole effects have that would make it more fun?
A WH can raise and lower all sorts of ship stats, from Armor HP, Shield Resistances, Weapon Damage, and Signature Radius. So in our home, you an take something great like an armor tech-III destroyer and it becomes even better. It will be able to fight ships in other classes that it generally wouldn’t be able to take down.
I assume the battles are also smaller scale?
Yeah, they can range from a small 5-10 man fleets up to 100 -200 man fleets at the upper levels. It all depends on the class of wormhole on how many ships you can get through and what type they are.
Is the main fight objective who stays and who goes?
I would say that is not the case most of the time. Wormhole PVP especially between two entities is generally more about the fight itself. There isn’t always an objective. I think what can set apart the fights in W-Space are the types of ships used and the fits. It used to be more common in W-Space to have blinger fit ships than you would see in K-Space. Most of our fights are about having the “Good Fights.”
You mentioned you like the culture of people that play in W-Space. What makes that subculture unique?
I think there is a culture of honor among the WH groups. If you fight when we roll into you and bring a good fight then things stay kosher [between both groups]. Most WH groups that PVP are just looking for content.
I also think that the people who are out here are adventurous. W-Space is the last frontier of EVE, some might say. No local, you have to scan everywhere you go. It is not easy. Maybe we are just masochists.
Are you concerned that recent goings-on with The Last Chancers Alliance being evicted, the news being shared about them, and what would you like to say about the political landscape of /r/wormholers?
I have really tried to stay neutral throughout this. I hang out in the tweetfleet slack wormholes channel. I think I have proven myself a person who can separate space politics/drama with moderation of a subreddit. At the end of the day this subreddit needs to be a place for all wormholers to feel they can speak their mind without fear of a moderators’ bias or corp/alliance affiliation shutting them down. All people have a right to express their opinions.
Who else is on the moderator team for the /r/wormholers?
The other mod is Exooki. He is the CEO of The Dark Space Initiative, a corp within Scary Wormhole People Alliance. He seems like a great guy. Up until we came together to run the subreddit we had never crossed paths before.
[During the course of the interview, news emerged that TLC and its main member corporation are disbanding. I began to ask about how this might change the launch of the subreddit]
Are you going to go ahead with the relaunch of the subreddit before you transition out of TLC?
Yeah, I think it is important that we send a message that in-game events are not going to be a factor in how we run the subreddit.
Regarding the content you hope to see on the sub, will it be different than r/eve, as in more strategy and gameplay discussion, or will it just be a more localized community of eve players?
I hope to see the wormhole community, which is a small percentage of EVE players, have a space for us to show our Killboards, stories, strategies, drama, etc. It is difficult in /r/eve because our content generally gets pushed down so fast either because most of the subreddit doesn’t find wormhole politics/events interesting or there are bigger stories going on in the other parts of New Eden.
For newer players, will they be welcome to the subreddit to ask questions and get involved? Are there any newbie friendly WH corporations?
New players will be welcome in the sub to ask questions and to just get involved with the conversation threads to come up. There are not a lot of wormholers out there compared to the rest of EVE, so any fresh blood–new player or veteran–that comes looking to get involved we will not turn them away. Wormbro, EVE University, and Glory Holers are new player-centric corporations. EVE Uni has a campus in W-Space.
I would like to thank OpusMagnum for taking the time to discuss his time in EVE and the upcoming /r/wormholers subreddit. His excitement for the game is palpable, and I look forward to following what the subreddit does for that community of players. Feel free to join him over there. If you have any questions for me, I can be found on the Imperium News Discord Server.
