The Safe Spot — Episode 6: "Exordium | Training wheels don't teach you how to crash"

In episode 6, Rixx and I dig into the biggest EVE Online announcement in a while — CCP's Exordium, a 53-system PvP-free region for new players. We've got strong opinions, open questions, a healthy dose of skepticism, and a quick recap of the latest Frigate Free-For-All. I was also fresh off a trip to France and still a bit jetlagged, so bear with me.

New Eden Banter #2: You're the Executive Producer of EVE Online

Welcome to the second installment of the New Eden Banter (NEB), the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux (that's me!). The NEB involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a couple of weeks to post articles pertaining to the said topic.

The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the New Eden Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com.

Check for other New Eden Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's topic: CCP just handed you the keys to EVE Online. You're the new Executive Producer — full authority over development, technology, marketing, monetization, and community. The only mandate: make EVE thrive. What's your vision? What do you prioritize, what do you cut, and what sacred cow do you slaughter first?

You are the Executive Producer — but first, understand what you're running

The Safe Spot — Episode 5: "Bad Patch"

In this episode, recorded back on March 24th, Rixx and I dive into what happens when CCP pulls the rug out from under your favorite ship mid-stride. Rixx has been on a PvP tear, stacking up fights and cracking the mystery of his disappearing video recordings, while I'm still reeling from the Catalyst major update that basically nerfed my entire gameplay loop. 

We get into patch notes philosophy, Pochven lore, blockade runners, abyssal arenas, and why the best advice in EVE often comes from the guy who just blew you up.

What returning EVE Online players need to know before undocking

This guide is based on a video by AloneInFinland, an EVE Online player and fantastic content creator who covers gameplay, fitting advice, and the state of the game from a veteran's perspective. Full credit to him for the insights, warnings, and hard-won lessons that follow. 

You can watch the original video on which this guide was built below. 👇

Overview

As I've mentioned before in recent posts, if you're coming back to EVE Online after a long break — whether that's five years or fifteen — there are a handful of changes that can ruin your day before you even realize what happened. In AloneInFinland's opinion, the biggest and most dangerous of these is the introduction of lawless systems in what used to be safe high-sec space. This guide walks you through what changed, how to protect yourself, and what else you should double-check before you undock that expensive ship.

Backrooms: This is the horror that gets under my skin

I first came across the concept of Backrooms back in 2022. Unless mistaken, I think that's where I first read about it anyways. It was a PC Gamer article "Noclipping is no joke: the strange world of The Backrooms explained" article which introduced me to "The Backrooms" — a concept that had started as a single creepy image posted anonymously on 4chan back in 2019. Just a photo of a yellowed, fluorescent-lit room that felt deeply, inexplicably wrong. No people. No context. Just endless, empty office space that seemed to go on forever. 

The description that came with it didn't help remove the confusion: "If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in The Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms."

WTF? 😦

The article went on to explain the origins of The Backrooms and mentioned Kane Parsons (known online as Kane Pixels), a 16 year old Youtuber that had taken that single creepy image and turned it into something extraordinary. Using Blender and After Effects — tools he'd taught himself —  uploaded The Backrooms (Found Footage) to YouTube on January 7, 2022. Minutes and minutes of found-footage horror set inside those endless yellow corridors. No budget. No film school. Just a teenager with a laptop and a gift for dread.

I went down the rabbit hole that evening. Watched the videos. Then went to Wikipedia to make sense of it all.

Then completely forgot all about it.

The Ten Commandments of the returning EVE capsuleer (now that the kids have grown up)

Back in 2010, I wrote a post called The Top Ten Commandments of the Capsuleer Parent. It was about survival — squeezing EVE Online into the margins of parenthood. Nighttime ops after bedtime. Changing diapers between gate jumps. Negotiating screen time with your spouse like it was a sov treaty.

That post came from the trenches. I was tired all the time, I was stubborn with my gameplay and blogging, and I was absolutely not giving up my game time.

Fast forward to 2026. The kids are grown. The house is quieter. The evenings are mine again. I should be living the dream, right?

Well. Sort of...

Here's what nobody tells you about coming back to EVE after a long absence: the game kept going without you (of course it did!). And so did you. You're no longer the same player. The game's not the same game — it is in a way, but it's also so different. And that freedom you spent fifteen+ years fantasizing about? It feels different than you thought it would.

So in the spirit of the original, here are the updated Commandments. 

Not for the parent surviving the chaos — but for the returning capsuleer looking at his docked ship and wondering where the hell everything went.

New Eden Banter #2 — Topic announcement: You are the Executive Producer

Every player has opinions about how EVE Online should be run. Most of us mutter them into comms after a bad patch, or rant about them on Discord, Reddit, or even a blog post for the old timer like me!

In this second New Eden Banter, you get to put those opinions on the record.

This month's topic

CCP just handed you the keys to EVE Online. You're the new Executive Producer — full authority over development, technology, marketing, monetization, and community. The only mandate: make EVE thrive. What's your vision? What do you prioritize, what do you cut, and what sacred cow do you slaughter first?

What do you do?