Heh, I've most likely played with you (Dreddit member since day 1 - for non-Eve players, TEST was started by Reddit players and is now one of the largest alliances in the game). I haven't played in almost two years, but watching a single corp grow from nothing to an entity that changed an entire game universe has been incredible.
The truly fascinating part was seeing first-hand which forms of organization and motivation work, and which ones don't. Specifically, how a laissez-faire organization with relatively few rules in a very hostile game world managed not only to avoid falling apart, but rise to be a superpower against established entities with much more defined and rigid structures.
I think TEST's biggest advantages were a shared identity and relatively strong culture (for better or worse) that emphasizes fun over winning , and practically non-existant standards for accepting new players combined with very strong training and bootstrapping (as opposed to more picky corps who either didn't want to bother with newbies or were afraid of spies). And maybe a bit of manifest destiny. Throw in support from a very similar but much more experienced and established ally, a lot of propaganda, and you have something that's very tough to beat in the long term.
I can ramble forever about it, I really am fascinated by how much complexity Eve allows. That game has to be a sociologist's or organizational behaviourist's dream come true.
The truly fascinating part was seeing first-hand which forms of organization and motivation work, and which ones don't. Specifically, how a laissez-faire organization with relatively few rules in a very hostile game world managed not only to avoid falling apart, but rise to be a superpower against established entities with much more defined and rigid structures.
I think TEST's biggest advantages were a shared identity and relatively strong culture (for better or worse) that emphasizes fun over winning , and practically non-existant standards for accepting new players combined with very strong training and bootstrapping (as opposed to more picky corps who either didn't want to bother with newbies or were afraid of spies). And maybe a bit of manifest destiny. Throw in support from a very similar but much more experienced and established ally, a lot of propaganda, and you have something that's very tough to beat in the long term.
I can ramble forever about it, I really am fascinated by how much complexity Eve allows. That game has to be a sociologist's or organizational behaviourist's dream come true.