Effort shock and the Big Wheel(s).

Effort shock as far as I know is a lesser known (unfortunately) term that was coined by David Wong the editor of cracked. 

Beware that the site has its share of weird s...tuff and is not for every one.  I can however recommend the editorial on Effort shock. 

For those who only have time for the answers the term relates to the fact that doing anything worthwhile takes effort.  So far so ho hum, BUT David Wong then goes and does a stellar job in pointing out that not merely does it take effort, but normally it takes SO MUCH MORE effort to accomplish something, than we had ever dreamed it would.

Ok Absence... so you read slightly unhinged material and being rather obtuse, strive to palm of what many readers regard to be everyday and mundane, as profundity... How does this relate to EVE?

In every way of course...

EVE is a fabulous game with a very infamous learning curve.  To get better takes time, effort and deliberate practice.

At every junction one has to actively make an effort to step up to the next level. 

In the early days time was the only way in which to progress in terms of SP. 

Even though SP can now be bought, in practical terms players have to somehow earn it - be it in game ISK for injectors, plex or real life effort to acquire money to exchange or plex/injectors - nothing is free.


The learning curve does not only relate to SP - the real learning curve is in player skill.  And knowledge.

Want to get into frigate pvp?  Learning curve.  Step up to destroyers?  Learning curve.  Cruisers...?  Yes learning curve.  Low sec? Null sec?  Small gang?  Nano?

The learning curve is not limited to PVP of course - PVE has it too.  PI and reactions?  Manufacturing?  Research?  Even mining has its own can of worms.

As per David Wong the surprise is not that effort is involved but how much more effort is involved in stepping up to the next endeavour. 

Now this is not a lament - on the contrary - this level of effort is in actual fact that makes this game worth playing - to the extent that I sometimes wonder whether long term EVE players are not victims of the sunk cost fallacy

TL;DR;  The sunk cost fallacy is the notion that (in the EVE context) players continue playing the game merely because of hours and dollars already committed, when most of the enjoyment in the game itself has passed.

Ok, Absence so you really have to make an effort to achieve the bare basics in the game... but surely everything is not about you...?

Ah dear reader, indeed it is not.  Today's missive in actual fact is about the Big wheels.  The enablers and the content creators.

In your authors' corp there are a few individuals that do an enormous amount of work that often goes unnoticed and is mostly under appreciated. 

We have for instance a website, slack channel and team speak that is all organised and hosted by an individual. At his own cost and in his own time.

In game we have a free jump freighting service that would move our ships from Jita/Hek/Rens to the warzone manned by 3 or 4 people. 

For those that do not know, this takes a 10Bil ISK ship and every single trip involves risk to that ship. 

Also often forgotten is the 40mil ISK or so for jump fuel for every trip.  The time involved, the need for an extra account (or accounts) with cyno characters.

We have corp doctrines and in some instances ships belonging to the corp (bought and paid for by selfless members - we have a 0% tax rate). 

Ships and fits that were researched and fit for purpose.  Shipped and staged (or moved via carrier jumps to the new staging point). 

In a recent citadel defence in excess of 20 battleships with associated command booster/webbing/tackle ships belonging to the corp were issued - no cost to the line members and losses accrue to the corp. 

We are speaking many, many billions of ISK here in addition to the effort to organise this little get together.


The common thread in all these endeavours seem to be that they invariably involve mostly the same people.  People that I expect are hovering on the edge of burnout at the moment given the levels of citadel defence fleets we had to field in the last little bit.

Bear in mind that these are busy people with real life jobs, hopes and dreams - in addition to their EVE lives.... 

From the perspective of someone like myself that can barely get himself into a not too sh#t fit frigate to run a novice plex, this type of thing leaves me in awe - I am under no illusions - there is no way I would be able to do this.

A corp like ours with a number of new players, alpha players and witless older players like myself simply cannot exist without enablers and content creators like these. 

Our corp is also not unique in this - the theme repeats in most other corps and even alliances - reliance on a couple of key individuals is such that whole corps/alliances have closed down or fail-cascaded  when one or more of these big wheels left.

Sometimes someone else steps up and life continues, sometimes the line members just move on.  Few players function without the prime movers (you get exceptions like truly solo players).

Absence is your corp in trouble...?

A dear reader no, not that I am aware of...

What I am however aware of, is that creating content is hard - much much harder than most of us realise.