A Community Think-Tank on Steroids: EVE’s Community Blog Banter Initiative Hits 50

EVE Online‘s community Blog Banter initiative began in 2008 when a few EVE players, who blogged about their space-based exploits and musings, united to chew over a single topic on a regular basis.

Now, 5 years and 50 editions later, the monthly collision of ideas and words from across the now vast EVE blogosphere sees dozens of space-faring bloggers flex their literary muscles on some of the hundreds of EVE blogs (like the Fremen from Frank Herbert’s Dune, no one is ever really sure how many are out there).

Crazy Kinux (Dave Perry) was the blogger who kickstarted the EVE Blog Banter based on ideas from fellow blogger Hawty McBloggy/BSAngel (Jessica Shea), who wrote largely about Halo. Back in the practically Jurassic previous decade, gaming blogs were more thin on the ground and were forced to huddle together for survival irrespective of their game of choice. Jessica Shae subsequently went on to become a community manager for Bungie.

Under Crazy Kinux’s custodianship, the Blog Banters (along with the Blog Pack – hand-picked examples EVE bloggery) helped evangelise the EVE blogging community and, before long, what began as a few disparate websites became a vibrant community of dozens of blogs, each chronicling their particular take on life in EVE Online from their individual perspectives.

Crazy Kinux then passed the custodianship onto Seismic Stan (some British fella called Mat Westhorpe 😉 ), as Crazy Kinux adopted his Dave Perry disguise to focus on a new role in business development for game development studio, Behaviour Interactive.

The EVE Blog Banters continued to grow in popularity, with over 120 bloggers participating in topics such as:

• the then precarious future of an MMO in crisis (BB28: The Future of EVE Online, CCP and the CSM – September 2011)
• an exploration of morality in EVE (BB37: The Line in the Sand – June 2012)
• game design issues such as the New Player Experience and how prime fiction live events could be reconciled with the day-to-day player-driven narrative (BB46: The Main Event – April 2013)

Now, at the big five-oh, the single, broad question asked by current Blog Banter curator – another moose-worrying Canadian and one of Crazy Kinux’s original gang, Kirith Kodachi (Bill Dullemond) – looks once more to EVE Online‘s future and the possible dawn of a new age in Blog Banter #50: Changes.

Whatever they foretell, one thing is seems certain – there will probably be a lot of bloggers writing about it. Indeed, it is the army of wordsmiths, who give their time to share their thoughts with the world, that are part of what makes the EVE community so rich. 

Kirith, who has been in the EVE Blog Banter driving seat since July this year, said;

“Over the years, the Blog Banters have been a good central time and location to capture a snapshot of the zeitgeist of the Eve meta community. Therefore when I had the chance to become caretaker of the institution, I jumped at the chance.”

A great community tradition is in safe hands.

Happy 50th Edition EVE Blog Banter and congratulations to the entire EVE blogging community for keeping the torches burning but the pitchforks (mostly) blunt. 😉

Header image courtesy of EVEOGANDA.

[*Blog Banter total word calculation based on a 500 word average post with an average of 25 blogs participating per Banter]