This week in the community spotlight, members of the PVE group Mobius tell us why they wanted to create the group, and why they wanted to make a space for players to interact in a friendly and productive way.

1] Mobius are one of the longest running Elite: Dangerous groups, what do you guys get up to? How have you lasted so long?

The secret to growing the group this large and lasting this long is very simple: We provide a safe and friendly environment for everyone to use but never tell our members what to do in it. The group's rules couldn't be simpler (basically don't spoil another's game), and inside of the group players are absolutely free to do whatever they want. From the start the group's motto has been "Ut Quisque Est Sua" (To each their own), and we believe this is the key to the group's success.

Also, it seems that the group's policy acts as a filter and with a very few exception, from time to time, all our members prefer friendly interactions rather than confrontational ones. This reflects also on our forums at www. elitepve.com where you can find one of the friendliest community's I've ever seen. Only a rather small percentage of our members use the forums regularly (between 4000 and 4500) but those who do are always friendly and eager to help each other. We can count on one hand the times our moderators had to intervene. No doubt this is a non-negligible part of the group's success.

-Commander Flip Martin

2] How did you first start out? Tell us a little bit about your group’s history?

Our group came into life on August 31st 2014 and by the end of the second week we had passed 100 members. By the time the game launched in December 2014 we had over 1500 members and this was showing no sign of stopping. It was then obvious that our group wasn't going to be something small or that only a few players wanted to be part of it. This is when the community began to freely offer to help us grow, Commander Dexter Wolf got our Forums running and Commander Forked supplied a 400 slot TeamSpeak server. This was only the start of our community.

Over the following year, word-of-mouth attracted players to our group because we were a multiplayer group that didn't go around killing each other. Players in our group could now play elite the way they wanted to play it, the idea of playing alongside other players as opposed to playing against them was our greatest selling point. To continue growing our community, Cmdr Vulcor Created our Facebook group and it is currently managed by Commanders Andy Bulman, Saberius, DuckOfDeath and Xariann. Our Forum is supported by Commanders Flip Martin, JohnLuke, Xebeth, Emanon and UnmarkedBoxcar. When frontier announced Player Factions our community got together and created a faction for them to get behind and support, this is when "The Order of Mobius" was formed and is currently supported by Commanders Lase Mooray and Lion Freeman.

Thanks to word-of-mouth, the Mobius group has become the default go-to group for multiplayer PvE and is now the largest in-game group.

-Commander Mobius

3] Congratulations on reaching 20,000 members. Is this something you thought would happen when you first started out?

What does it mean for Mobius? How hard is it to manage a group that large?

Thanks, 20,000 is quite an achievement for a single group! When I first started the group I let commanders know that it was going to be a leaderless group, no one was going to be telling anyone what to do and all that was required was that members didn’t spoil another commander’s game.

I never set out to make a large group, it was something that just happened. As word spread about a dedicated PvE group players just signed up and continue to do so. Being the largest Group in Elite: Dangerous is something to be proud of. Though I maybe the founder of the group, the Mobius group is rightly owned by the PvE community, as without them the group simply wouldn’t exist.

You would think that managing a group of 20,000 would be difficult but surprisingly the group manages itself, players in our group all adhere to the group policy of not spoiling another commander’s game. Because we don’t tell others how they should play the game, hundreds of other groups have chosen to also operate within the Mobius Group knowing that if players fail to follow a simple group policy then they find that they are kicked and blocked from ever entering the group. This ensures that our group remains secure from undesirable players.

Frontier have been very supportive of our group. Each time we hit a technical issue with our group size, Frontier was quick to resolve it and even with our recent issue of hitting 20,000 members, Frontier was again very supportive and opened up a second account to expand our group into. We have since balanced both groups to ensure that they are equally populated and even having the two groups they are both still the largest private groups found in the game.

-Commander Mobius

4] What is it about Elite: Dangerous that keeps you coming back?

It has to be a combination of the sheer size and breadth of the game coupled with the great community in Mobius. I’ve played computer games for over 20 years, and generally you reach that point where you think, “well that’s it, done it all, seen it all”, but even after more than 14 months in Elite: Dangerous there is still loads of stuff I haven’t done, and of course more keeps getting added!

Then there is the Mobius community, being able to randomly wing-up with a complete stranger in a RES, or join with a group of like-minded Commanders in a CG or CZ just adds to the enjoyment and makes the galaxy feel alive. ED is one of those games where you get more out if you put more in, be it playing together in-game, or discussing load-outs, tactics, ships, or simply coming up with stupid things to do on our very active forum.

There is also the future to look forward to, what I’ve seen of the plans for the game are very exciting and bode well for an even greater experience.

-Commander Xebeth

5] What are your thoughts about the Elite: Dangerous Community?

The community on the whole is awesome, there are so many groups that are creating positive content for Elite: Dangerous like Lave Radio and tools like INARA that was tested within our PvE community before it went live to the public. We have the Twitch streamers, the Hutton Truckers with their quirky humour, and the Fuel Rats with their in-game support. Like us, these are the type of people that bring positive content to elite and are what makes the community great. Elite attracts all types of players, be that the Player that prefers to play alongside other commanders in a dedicated private PvE environment like ours, or those that enjoy the random PvP encounter in the open group. The game allows us to play in the way that we find enjoyable.

Our own PvE community is a beautiful sight with the way that players have banded together. Our minor faction in-game has had the opportunity to gain some real traction, which has been completely due to the community members really helping out. Having people come onto our forums to ask how they can help, even if they have only a small ship, has been amazing to see. In recent times the work of the community allowed the faction to expand into a neighbouring system, to which we are currently in our second war. For some people this has been their first real experience of working in a wing, it certainly has been mine (in a meaningful sense). Given the size of the galaxy it can sometimes be hard to come across another player, let alone one interested in winging up. Going into a combat zone as part of a wing (or joining one when you get in), having the chance to inform other CMDRs that a Clipper has turned up, watching as 4 ships pummel it and having the chat after when it is destroyed really makes you feel part of something bigger.

Another thing I have noticed as part of this war is when you see CMDRs in Supercruise. Previously there would be the hollow scanner marker and that was it, now you will get a "o7" or a "Hello". When the combat zones move, it is great working with another CMDR to find the new locations, then informing them of where to go. It is all this interaction that builds a real sense of community and community spirit. All I hope is that this time we win the war, there will probably be some partying going on in one of the stations!

We have a community that certainly tries to get everyone involved, in a way that they are comfortable with. Everyone has their own play style and if someone wants to help out, our community will help to find a way they can contribute. Giving advice on what will help the faction, where to trade, what ship is good for this or that, or how should I kit out that ship. All this is done with no one feeling their solution is 'the right one', just a different way.

-Commander Lase Mooray

6] What events or notable activities have Mobius been involved in?

While we may not have the equivalent of Community Goals influence, we have had in past, run Twitch competitions with paintjob & bobblehead giveaways, we also have teams of players that take part in CQC Arena, (though nothing officially liaised with Mobius PvE community yet, we have to come up with a kick-ass team name). We would like to bury the stigma that none of our members have any 'real space' combat experience by winning a competition or two.

A true inhouse event for Mobius PvE has been the player pushed expansion of the in-game faction known as "The Order Of Mobius".

This faction shares our real world group name, and many pilots have made the system Azrael their home base.

Every time there is a conflict zone war for the in-game faction, many human pilots have been encouraged to go win us some influence in the system war. It provides great entertainment, especially when the TeamSpeak server is used and everyone is having fun in wings or solo and the communication can be 'free flowing' to be polite about it.

However, our mainstay and greatest contribution is the continual event of providing safe haven for players that do not wish to participate in PvP space but still retain a community and interaction with other players of the same mindset.

While some members are brand new to the game, we also have many Commanders that have simply had enough of the killing and have been long term players of the game, and have come into Mobius with a view to share their experience. With this in mind, and to best leverage this abundant experience, we are trying to start up tutorial services to assist new players in their preferred professions of Trader/Combat/Explorer/Miner.

In the end, we remind players that there is no final cut-scene, there is no boss-fight level 150, the goal is not always to make billions of credits, collect one of every ship, or get every permit and badge. The goal is to enjoy the game. It is encouraged and other members lend their advice, experience and humour to assist where possible to make the Mobius experience a good one.

-Commander Saberius

7] What’s next for Mobius?

Obviously we'd like to see our group grow so that even more Commanders get to experience ED in a friendly environment where the focus is on enjoying the game with other players.

We've got a few ideas for future activities, a Mobius focused podcast is something we've discussed, and our player faction has peaked the interest of a number of our group, so we are very interested to see how that works out.

However, to be perfectly honest, we are very much steered by our members, with such a diverse range of players and interests there is never a shortage of suggestions, be it for the group as whole, or for individual parts of our community. So our main focus is on continuing to provide an environment for people to enjoy the game in, supported by our social media channels and the great contributions of our fantastic community.

-Commander Xebeth

8] Anything you’d like to tell the community about?

The Elite Franchise has always been a pure PvE game up until this Version; it was always about the lone commander making their way across the galaxy while inventing their own story for being there.

Elite: Dangerous changes all that with multiplayer, some see this as an opportunity to make you their content while others see it as an opportunity to add content for others.

The MOBIUS ELITE PvE group offers players the opportunity to play with others while not being the content of others. Our private group of over 20,000 members is very friendly and pilots consider every other pilot they come across as a friend and ally. Hundreds of other groups use our group to role play in or to conduct group events in security.

We have one simple rule that any intelligent player can follow and that is to not spoil another commander's game while playing within our group.

Commanders wanting to join our PvE community have two choices as we have two groups.

The "MOBIUS PvE" group caters for those in the AMERICAS time-zones, while the "MOBIUS" group hosts the EURO/APAC time-zones.

See you in the Black.

-Commander Mobius