Pandemic Horde (PH) is Pandemic Legion‘s newbro (or newbean as PL and PH term them) friendly alliance.
Horde is somewhat similar to KarmaFleet and Brave Newbies in its objectives, though with some quite stark and profound differences. It emphasizes its relationship with Pandemic Legion and encourages new players to develop and improve with the help of established Pandemic Legion players who act as mentors. I took the time to interview a few players and FCs so I could get a better picture of who the members of Pandemic Horde really are.
Pandemic Horde is an FC-focused group. The FCs bring content and the content in turn attracts new players. There are absolutely no requirements to become an FC; as long as people will follow you with their ships, you are an FC. FCs can experiment with new doctrines and choose their targets (except, of course, Waffles and PL). If players like you and you are an active FC you should see a steady increase in your fleet numbers. If not, you can always ask for tips on how to improve, as there are plenty of resources at your disposal.
Their end goal is to get every single member of their alliance regardless of age, or skill points to gain as much knowledge as they are willing to take in. With PL and Waffles both having an almost a decade long history, if anyone has the knowledge to teach newbies, it’s Pandemic Legion.
Players can join Pandemic Horde by opening up the chat channel “Join HORDE” in game and following the instructions in the MOTD. Pandemic Horde has no API Checks, no requirements and most of all, no inner circle of FCs, because ANYONE can FC. Players are usually accepted within 2 hours, however, with the recent influx of players it is taking longer. Pandemic Horde has had 700 players join within the last 5 days and are currently gaining an average of 1000 members per week or an average of 1 every 10 minutes. They are now the second largest alliance in New Eden.
Pandemic Horde also run classes similar to Brave’s Dojo, however PH focus on practical lessons, again reinforcing their idea of getting players into the action as soon as possible. Their classes vary in length, type, subject and quality, as anyone can run a class. Classes are free to attend and can usually be found on the forums or in one of the new player’s channels linked in the corp chat MOTD. They range in topic from making ISK and becoming self-sufficient to solo pvp and how to FC.
NL1GHT3D, a Horde FC, elaborates:
“We also run skybean programs, where we send out someone that wants to have a hand in FC’ing, provide him with free ships to run his fleet with and an FC alongside of him, helping him out with FC’ing. People are encouraged to do classes with newbeans. For yesterday’s ops I’ve arranged for a small ‘how to act in a fleet, 101’ to move newbeans from A2 straight into battle in the north, and get them into the fleets. I haven’t FC’ed, ever, but it’s still worthwhile to transfer a little bit of experience onto newbeans who suddenly start helping out other newbeans, form fleet, show initiative and create their own story.”
Pandemic Horde also has many videos available on YouTube and Twitch.tv that members have recorded and put on display. These videos are public and available for anyone to watch, use, and teach from.
I was surprised to learn that despite PL and PH’s close relationship there was no program or goal to get PH players into PL. Instead, players were encouraged to follow their dreams and goals in Eve and as long as they keep playing Eve, PH do not care about what side you are on as PH’s core goal is to provide newbies with content, nothing more. When asked about this, NL1GHT3D replied:
“Not in any way, no we aim for them to stick to the game and either fly with us or against us, but at least keep flying! It’s what I want in real life too. I play a sport which has a small-medium player base in my country. Whether you play with or against me, I do not care about. If you have a passion for the game, I want to see you out there on the pitch :-)”
I spoke with Travis Keikira -a founding member and lead FC for Pandemic Horde- about the goals, aims and strategic value of Pandemic Horde. When asked specifically about the timescale of a newbie joining to getting into fleet. He said this to me (I added times based on my own experience).
“We aim to get new players directly into action, after setting up services and mumble etc. (~15 minutes) we get them to travel to our staging (~30 minutes), get them into a fleet (~5 minutes) and then give them a free ship to go play in. We want new players to experience the same fun we get flying more advanced doctrines in PL. We give them Skillbooks, Skillplans, Guides and we even have a mentor program where experienced and respected players from Pandemic Legion mentor a newbro and help them become a better player. Even Grath Telkin himself has a group of 3 or so Mentees”
Pandemic Horde is a very important part of the Money Badger Coalition, says Travis, showing up for major timers with DPS, not just an EWAR wing. Asked about the impact which WorldWarBee has had on Horde, and EVE as a whole, Travis informed me that WorldWarBee will help Pandemic Horde and EvE as a whole grow. He emphasized that WorldWarBee will create more content for everyone, no matter what side of the war you are on. Travis praised the new life that WorldWarBee is breathing into EvE and speaks with passion about this rejuvenation.
“We form as many dudes as possible to go and stomp some goons and then go have a roam. Like last night, we formed 300 players at peak to go help out in VFK, then after that we went and did a gate camp that turned into a karaoke that CCP showed up to themselves. For the last two weeks it was my goal to get Pandemic Horde to destroy the Jump Bridge Network in Pure Blind and guess what we did it, that’s forced Space Monkeys Alliance into a full EVAC with logistics scrambling for routes out.”
That’s what Pandemic Horde is about, getting into the action directly, and not always skirting the sidelines with an EWAR wing.
Players can do whatever they want in Pandemic Horde. It’s an environment where you can grow, not must grow, and I think that’s what gives Pandemic Horde such a laid back feel to it. I joined my first fleet, jumped on comms, and within minutes 150 players were in the fleet. Comms were relaxed, the FC came down to our channel and just had some casual chit chat. It felt like a group of friends rather than a fleet.
Pandemic Horde has become a major part of Eve and is now the second largest alliance in New Eden. Horde holds sov in two separate constellations and took down an entire region’s jump bridge network. It will be interesting to see how they evolve over the course of this war, and where they end up afterwards.
