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[Weeks]

Like any organization, Agony has both a public and private face. Publicly, we are the PVP training resource in EVE. No one else comes close to our professionalism, expertise or accessibility. The time is quickly approaching where it will become common knowledge that in order to "break in" to the PVP game in EVE one needs to first take a few Agony PVP-University classes to jump-start. How many people over the last few years have learned their love of the pew-pew at the patient, instructive hands of Agony teachers? (Answer: thousands)

But we cannot neglect the private face of Agony in our enthusiasm to share our love of the tactical chess game that is PVP in EVE Online. Every time we offer a BASIC class, we get two or three "converts" who come to us expressing their love of the way Agony approaches PVP. Some of them we turn away, but many are accepted into our ranks. When we have boom months like the last two here in PVP-U, where we offer another class nearly every weekend, and on some weekends two, we get an accompanying boom in applicants and new members in Agony. In order for us to properly train and accept these members into our ranks, we have to have time to pay attention to them, run internal seminars to indoctrinate them, run gangs to test them, etc.

So what does Agony do behind closed doors? Well, if you've been through an Agony class, you've seen a glimpse of it. We move to various regions of space, set up shop in an NPC station and proceed to play with the locals. We shoot them, they shoot us, they lose ships, it's fun for everyone. *grin* Seriously, we do a lot of internal development of tactics, logistics for these moves, gangs roaming through our chosen vacation spot looking for targets of opportunity, even the occasional POS-killing operation to piss off the locals and encourage them to come out and play. We need time to do these things as well, because for those of us who are members of Agony, this is what Agony is to us day in and day out. We can log on at any time of the day and be virtually guaranteed to have a group of guys willing to fit up and head out to shoot something. When PVP-U is in a state of boom, as was the case for the last few months, we start to see the beginnings of burn-out in our members. Less gangs are run, less internal tactics development, etc.

So, PVP-U is currently in the downswing, the trough of the wave. We're more active now behind the scenes than we have been in a while. Our North American TZ group has so many new members that we've closed recruitment there temporarily to handle mentoring and teaching all of these guys and, yes, girls, to fit into the way Agony does things in EVE. Please be patient with us as we build up some more momentum. We're going to be going through a move to a new region soon (this downswing was partially in preparation for that move), and will be spinning the University back into full-bore operations soon.

Now, don't take this to mean that PVP-U is "dying" or any other such dramatic label. We're absolutely nothing of the sort. We have more instructor and FC volunteers now than we have ever had in the history of the University, so far as I am aware. View this as a healthy period of hibernation, healing and rest before we begin a new season. The classes announced will continue to go forward, but do not expect them to be as frequent as they have been in the last couple of months.