Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Kudos to Phreeze!

You probably heard that Insidious Empire is closing. This isn't happening often. No, I'm not talking about failed groups and projects, they happen all the time. What is rare is simply accepting "it doesn't work, let's close it and let everyone find his happiness as he can".

What usually happens is a long agony with desperate attempts to save the organization. I left TEST when it started there. Even before 6VDT I wrote on the forum that with the current lack of leadership and FCs, the best move is exactly what Phreeze did: close the alliance and move the corps to another, functional one. Probably not by accident I also suggested Nulli Secunda. But that damn BoodaBooda and his second class excuses for management held on to their space importance and kept leading TEST into oblivion.

This would have been the fate of EMP too. But Phreeze recognized that he is unable to lead the alliance properly but refused to lead it improperly and did the right thing: closed it. He should be commended for this. Not many give up space-importance so easily.

There is one thing everyone must understand: groups aren't people. People are people. The destruction of EMP isn't the destruction of the members. Just as Makalu found home in PL, every one of them will sooner or later be somewhere else and won't shed a tear for EMP. No groups deserve the sacrifice of people. Groups are there to serve members and not the other way. The example of Phreeze should be followed by every failed group leader. When your group couldn't break into nullsec, the solution isn't lingering in NPC space while crying that "small guys can't get a foothold in null", because they can. Your group isn't a guy, it is a group. The guys are the members you are stopping from getting a foothold in null by keeping them in NPC space instead of letting them go to join groups that aren't failures.


PS: I wish to ask for a minute of silence honoring Eon Darkenergy, who lost his 700M ship and 950M pod to Lemmings. He was a faithful inner pet, his final words were "For Mittens!" May his example remind all Goon pets to their duty, and also to their unavoidable fate.

6 comments:

Stabs said...

Hmm, I have mixed feelings about this.

You're basically right, TEST lets people cling to being space important far too long. I asked for some ships to be stocked for my fleets (cormorants, Jaffinator asked for Hurricanes) and our Importing Division wouldn't import them because they weren't an official doctrine and our Doctrines department wouldn't talk to me or let me join. I also asked Recon for information on targets at the start of the FA/Li3 campaign and they basically told me to get lost (I was one of two active FCs above Boot Camp level at the time).

EMP however. Well I joined them near the end and the FCs were doing everything. Then Phreeze swanned back in after being on holiday and threw them under a bus. All the strat FCs resigned the day after Phreeze's alliance update blaming everything on the FCs.

And he's not gone off to be insignificant. He leaves with the alliance wallet (we estimated 200b) and a place in PL where he could FC or run a campaign tomorrow if he likes due to the open structure of that alliance.

As for the Lemmings you're doing brilliantly, great to see!

Gevlon said...

I'm not saying he was a saint. I was saying most people would take even worse options. Like he could promote braindead baboons to strat FCs and let them waste peoples time for weeks. Or simply don't criticize anyone for the failures (maybe not the FCs are to blame, but someone is as the campaign didn't go well) and let EMP linger as "roaming PvP alliance".

Even if he took the wallet and landed in PL as an FC (though I doubt if they'd allow him FC strategic fleets), he is no longer an alliance leader. No one generates a new alliance wallet for him.

My point is that he gave up that position on his own, while he could keep it.

Anonymous said...

"though I doubt if they'd allow him FC strategic fleets"

Stabs tells you how it is and yet - despite being uninformed - you still feel the need to contradict.

In PL any grunt could post a stratop or an entire campaign - and either people will follow him or they won't. It's not a question of whether you are "allowed" to do it or not, the question is if you can get people to follow you or whether you'll just make a fool of yourself.

You also seem to be entirely ignorant that Phreeze is very much part of the old boys club. He goes back to IAC, is a very prolific kugu poster (known for his General Patton gimmick) and has been a member of PL for several years.
He founded EMP together with another PL member and there is no question "if" he'll land in PL as a FC - he probably never left PL.
Check his employment history and you'll see that he didn't even move his main out of PL until 7 months after he had founded EMP, surely he maintained characters and contacts in PL all along.
He's not the only PL member to get bored with PL itself and start his own corp or alliance on the side - only to return to PL full-time some time later once he gets bored of leadership tedium.

So, yes, there is a decent chance people would follow Phreeze if he were to propose a reasonable campaign. Just because he didn't have enough spare time to maintain his EMP hobby properly doesn't mean he turned into a bad FC.

Arrendis said...

EMP was never anything but a wholly-owned subsidiary of PL. Everyone in null, with the possible exception of EMP's line membership, knew that.

Anonymous said...

You don't understand the difference between an alliance and a community and this is why you compare EMP with TEST.

Anonymous said...

Making the decision to stop something you are bad at is a good decision. If it comes along with admitting failure (eg. as an alliance leader), then it needs a strong character to do so.
However, thinking that the alliance will not be able to exist without you and therefore disbanding (and making off with the wallet) is very self-centered and very inconsiderate. What in EVE gives him the reason, let alone right to think that there is no-one or no group in the alliance that could step up and run the alliance and keep it alive?