Long time no see, beltalowda. A combination of technical issues and apathy has kept me locked out of our blog. While the technical issues ended up being fairly simple to resolve, the apathy is a more complicated beast to slay.
The truth is that I’ve just stopped enjoying Eve. There’s no particular reason for this. In many ways, Eve is a better game now than it’s ever been. And yet, I can’t get myself to care. I think this mostly boils down to a lack of free time and too many things to spend it on. When I started the HMA, it was during the peak-COVID era of remote work. Everyone was looking for a way to kill some time on their second monitor and our public NPSI fleets did a great job of meeting that need. While the HMA has always been subject to ups and downs, as more people started returning to the office we began to see a drastic shortage of both Bosmangs and fleet participants. As one of those returnees, my own participation has also waned.
The failscade is a constant threat for all Eve organizations. Even the best-run groups have the possibility of entering a death spiral of content shortage. Fewer participants means less activity and less activity means fewer participants. While there are always extenuating circumstances, the root cause of this organizational collapse is always a failure of leadership to give their people what they want. Despite it’s open and public nature, the HMA clearly isn’t immune to this. While it’s true that anyone can run an HMA fleet, it is still up to HMA leadership to give them a reason to. That means being able to provide a clear and compelling vision and the support and guidance to make that vision real. Currently, the HMA is lacking both.
On March 16th, the HMA began its fourth year of operation. With participation at an all-time low, it’s time for us to start asking the hard questions. How does the HMA to maintain relevance in today’s New Eden? More importantly, do we even want to? There is no question that the glory days of the HMA are long past. Is there still a possibility for future glories or is it time to move on?
