As someone who fancies themselves a pirate in EVE Online, I was pretty stoked when I first heard about the changes and gameplay features coming to Havoc, the next expansion for the space-faring MMO. Pirate factions such as the Angel Cartel and Guristas are prominent NPC groups in New Eden, with ships from Angel Cartel making up some of my favorites in the MMO - the Machariel especially.
With Havoc finally allowing players to interact more meaningfully with the pirate corporations by siding with them in the Deathless' schemes in the new region of Zarzakh, more players might start to fancy themselves a pirate too - especially with the new Angel Titan as a potential reward in the end.
However, being a pirate in EVE Online for many players is about more than just roleplaying as part of an NPC faction - it's oftentimes a dangerous, high-stakes way to play EVE, where tackling a simple mining vessel comes with great risk, but also great rewards in the end. It's also about being independent, not beholden to the Empires of EVE, either player-driven or an NPC one.
"From a corporation standpoint, we just want to fight," Stay Frosty's leader Rixx Javix told me during EVE Fanfest 2023 last weekend. "I think about Lowsec as our home, and we don't want the Empires controlling us - we want to be our own people."
It's probably here I should note that I am a pilot in Stay Frosty, though this piece is approached from my role as a games journalist, not simply to prop up my own in-game corp. So take that for what it's worth.
A Pirate's Life For Me
As someone who has bounced between multiple playstyles in EVE Online, from a humble explorer to a mining enthusiast, the one playstyle that I always wanted to try was that of a Lowsec pirate. A buddy of mine started a corporation with me in Lowsec to try to achieve this end, but we were just straight rubbish at PvP, so it didn't really go far.
It's hard to make ISK in PvP when you're too busy losing your ships in the process.
However, despite the fact that one of the major draws into this MMO were the big, spectacular battles EVE nerds participate in on the regular, I never really wanted to be beholden to one of those large player blocs either. I dabbled with joining Goonswarm at one point, flying with their PvE corporation KarmaFleet University for a while, and even thought about applying for Brave, another major player in the Nullsec stage.
But the thought of just operating on my own, or in a small pack, was much more alluring, despite my sheer ineptitude at PvP in this game.
The pirate factions of EVE always held a special place in my mind, even as I blew up their NPC pilots for missions and ISK. My favorite ship in the game is the Angel Cartel battleship Machariel, not that I ever have occasion to use mine in battle. I just love the look of it, and the speed it offers on the battlefield when it is engaged makes it really hard for enemies to pin down, especially when it's equipped to be a back-of-the-line, long-range sniper.
Yet I'll admit, when the Factional Warfare changes came last year with Uprising, I wanted to toss off the Pirate's life for one of servitude to the Empires of EVE, if for no other reason than it was content I could play and almost daily PvP. Yet I was unwilling to leave my own Pirate corporation, having made some great friends and found camaraderie there.
We're now facing a similar situation - just with a new wrinkle: will a pirate faction like Stay Frosty end up aligning with the NPC factions, or will they remain independent again?
"My response right now is that we're going to wait and see for all the details that come out," Rixx told me when asked about his thoughts on the upcoming changes. Rixx compares it to the original situation when corporations could decide whether to join a faction in the new factional warfare content versus now joining up with a NPC pirate-aligned one. Why?
"A lot of people wanted to join a faction [in Stay Frosty], earn LP, become part of the Caldari or Gallente or whatever. And my response was, 'Why?' Why should we give up half the factional warfare space and not be able to shoot those people, right? We're true pirates. We're not NPC pirates; we're not part of an empire - we actually stand for anti-Empire. We want Lowsec to be free, right?"
Joining Independently
One of the major questions both myself and Rixx had leaving the EVE keynote was whether or not joining up with a pirate faction would work much like the current Factional Warfare system does, where you had to either allow your members to join a designated faction as a corporation, or leave your corp entirely to enlist.
This was one of my major issues with factional warfare as I didn't want to leave my existing playergroup to participate just because I wanted to shoot Gallente and they wanted to shoot everybody (let's be fair, I want that too).
For months talking with CCP Burger, CCP Swift, and more in interviews, I lamented this fact - as a pirate, there didn't seem to be a meaningful way we could interact with factional warfare without giving up our corporation or way of life. And for months, it seems they've had to bite their tongues, unable to share that this was something on their roadmap.
In fact, it feels a bit like the Havoc updates are directed squarely at me - though I certainly cannot take credit for it (though if CCP wants to admit this, I'm more than happy to!).
Peter "CCP Swift" Ferrell is also an old-school pirate in EVE Online and talked about the changes coming with Havoc with some real zeal in our interview during Fanfest. While the current meta in faction warfare is one a tug-of-war, the two opposing sides vying for control over the system, pirate FW is a race to corrupt the system itself.
"It's a really neat system that the game designers came up with," Peter tells me in our interview. "The pirates, for now it's either the Angel Cartel or the Guristas, find a system in the factional warfare zone, and five systems in any direction become corrupted. And now, faction warfare is a tug-of-war; this is more of a race. So the pirates want to corrupt five systems, the anti-pirates want to suppress five systems."
One of the questions Rixx had when I interviewed him was whether or not you can participate without actually being aligned with Angel or Guristas. And it seems the answer is yes, according to Peter, though more indirectly than anything else.
There are ways to indirectly affect the outcome of the system's corruption if you don't want to align with anyone. Just shoot the pirates or anit-pirates. Or both, especially if the mantra is you want to shoot everybody. But to meaningfully move the needle to either suppress or corrupt, you'll need to be aligned, according to Swift.
This is where I think a group like Stay Frosty can participate but keep its overall independence, which is what it feels Rixx's goal is. The alliance overall is called "A Band Apart," and he means that. But, mercifully and thankfully, joining a pirate faction in pirate FW doesn't mean you have to leave your corporation anymore - you'll be able to join it independently, allowing players to continue to play the way they want without sacrificing the most important element of EVE Online: the social one.
It also provides an interesting wrinkle in lowsec - a new combatant in the warzone to contend with. How does this change the makeup of battle in the region? Do we see the major NPC empires band together to take out the pirate threat, only to start shooting each other again when it's over? Do we see the new pirate players aligned with their respective NPC factions make hard pushes to see how corruption can spill out even into Highsec space?
A Dying Breed
One concern that it seems Rixx and I share is that the old-school pirate playstyle in EVE seems to be going by the wayside.
"My other fear, though, is today there aren't many of us left. Tuskers are off in a wormhole. Snuffed Out's not really what I consider piracy, although they do. But there are not many of us left, and I don't want to give that up. If I move Stay Frosty in a certain direction, it may change us and turn us into something that we're not, and then that old school pirate idea that the corporation and the Tuskers, that lineage will be lost. Sometimes I feel like we're the last bastion and I'm holding onto that."
He doubled down on this in a recent blog post after Fanfest, stating that Stay Frosty won't be aligning with any particular faction even now. Instead, it'll seek to sow its own type of chaos in the systems that are under siege.
"We didn't join a militia when Uprising launched and we won't be joining any NPC pirate factions when Havoc launches. Why eliminate a chunk of potential targets? We'll happily show up and engage everyone on all sides of the aisle and sow our own form of chaos and suppression and corruption thank you. Just like we always have."
However, one thing is certain: Lowsec is going to get more interesting come November, with more players taking to the warfare zones. And that's always a good thing for everyone involved, whether aligned with a faction or simply there for the fights these pockets of EVE space offer.
"I mean, I 100% love the idea; it'll engage a lot more players, and it'll make Lowsec more exciting. More players in Lowsec is good for everybody."
