Red vs Blue is one of the classic institutions of Eve Online, a place where thousands of pilots have got their first taste of PvP in New Eden. Founded in 2011, players join one of two corporations: Red Federation or Blue Republic, and do battle with each other across space. RvB has always been one of the best ways to get a quick, low-cost PvP fight on relatively fair and fun terms. The group went through a serious decline in 2015, but now they’re back with a vengeance under new, reinvigorated management and they are planning to unite the two warring corporations to take the fight to a “major eve alliance” in the coming month in their self-described “Spring War”.

I spoke with the chair of Red vs Blue – Vision Thing Achasse about the group and their plans for the Spring War.

We began things by chatting about the history and playstyle of RvB.

– Can you give a brief overview of RvB for readers who might not have experienced or heard of RvB before?

RvB is a war raging between two corporations Red Federation and Blue Republic – the emphasis has always been on fun, explosions, quick cheap PvP and we runs in-house events (alongside the war itself) to that end – don’t be fooled by the stereotype though, we throw all the toys at least once a week, we haven’t burned through 35 trillion isk purely in T1 frigates and cruisers. We have a few rules to facilitate everyone’s fun – so mid-slot ECM is banned outright and we don’t allow podding. We try to give newer players a chance to learn and have fun – a great many people in Eve today took their first steps into PvP with us.

– Are there any requirements to join RvB?

Not really. We encourage people to have some small buffer of ISK before joining up. RvB has been known to be a rather questionable investment strategy…

You can have the most terrific fun in RvB in a pile of T1 hulls and we hand out thousands of free frigs each month, but if you enjoy playing with the big shiny toys it’s better if you aren’t counting the ISK. All we ask is that people respect each other and the community – most do that and much more.

– So what does a typical RvB fight look like?

“Typically in the past we had fleets of 20-30 rolling all the time and typically T1 cruiser and below – things are more eclectic now and you really could see anything on grid for either side. Since we are an open corp the skill levels vary dramatically so it’s common to see tackle frigs riding alongside battleships.

The mechanics of balanced combat in RvB are an art-form that shouldn’t really work in Eve but do – our FC’s tread a fine line between warlike aggression and fair play. Sometimes there is a bit of friction and salt – but this is war…”

– Can you tell me a little bit more about the history of RvB? How did the idea of RvB come about and what caused its near-death experience in 2015? How has the new management revitalised the old group?

Others are more knowledgeable about the very early days because I joined later on – the idea was to get more fights, more explosions and quickly.

Let’s be honest, you can spend a long time in low-sec some days looking for a fight and not find anything worth taking on and null-sec can grind even slower.

RvB was designed for the player that wanted to log on, undock and get pewing right away in ships he didn’t have to worry about losing. At the time RvB started, options for PvP were limited and we provided something in the sandbox no-one else could.

The near “closure” of RvB flowed from a number of factors including a failure to strategically respond to the new options for PvP in the game. I think the most important factor though was leadership burnout, this institution is a demanding mistress and I think key people just got tired. The door was left open for a new team to demonstrate that they could take things forward positively and happily we have been able to do that.

Our priority has been to go right back to the basics of what made RvB so successful in the first place, cheap, fun, quick PvP. We also had to shout “HEY WE ARE STILL HERE!”.

Rebuilding relationships with the very many people who hold RvB close to their hearts has been crucial in delivering a community led revival in our fortunes, it’s been an all-round team effort.

The topic then moved to the upcoming Spring War.

-Can you give us some more details about the “Spring War Campaign?”

Well, RvB has no interest in Null Sec Sov – so we will be looking at alliances with assets near us. We don’t have the numbers to just steam roller anyone but this is where our FC’s are very experienced. In RvB, numbers and ship types are rarely balanced but the option to just warp away isn’t in the spirit of what we do, so we improvise on the fly and try to get what kills we can. We will be looking to be mobile, hard hitting and intelligent in our choice of targets – things we do very well. Our target will be one of the game’s biggest alliances and we hope to sting them in spots that might result in some transient smarting…

– What makes RvB decide to stop fighting each other and engage in combat with other alliances?

Well why not? The more the merrier for us! There is a certain snobbery in the game directed towards our merry war so it’s nice to tweak a few noses every now and again.

– How well prepared do you think RvB FC’s will be for the mass combat of null-sec warfare?

I think we will take the fight on our own terms – null sec blobs are not really what rings our bell.

– Does RvB have the capacity to deal with escalation from established null-sec super assets if such a group was to join the war? If not have you developed any tactics to deal with that?

Well you never know who might be minded to help us… (no, not THEM)

– What is the goal of RvB’s future conflict? Is it simply to have a good fight? Or are there greater strategic goals such as taking Sov or dislodging a certain group from a region?

Always with us it’s for a good fight. I think RvB got a bit burned with null sec politics in the past and under my watch we’ll be neutral to all that. We don’t cry about lost ships or gaze lovingly at killboards – we want explosions and mayhem, it’s what we do….

I pressed Vision Thing Achasse on the target of the future Spring War, including rumours that their target may be Pandemic Horde, but he remained expectedly unwilling to divulge the target of his alliances invasion plan, although their planned move to Forge makes this seem highly likely.

– Thank you Vision Thing Achasse, with that, is there anything else you would like to say about RvB or the upcoming Spring War?

Just to say we run a regular program of events and fleets and roam around bothering people in low sec with surprising regularity.

We have a PUBLIC ‘House Warming Party’ in Josameto THIS SUNDAY 19th Feb from 19:30 and we aim to throw a 1,000 cruisers on to a bonfire to get things off with a swing – all are welcome ‘x’ up in R-V-B chat to join fleet.

RvB has scheduled fleets on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday with training on some Tuesdays.

We have a free frig FFA on Fridays which is super for alphas who can learn the basics of PvP in T1 ships – free of any cost.

Former RvB pilots are now formally called to arms – its time to return home and daub on the red and blue war face paint. We are ready to rumble…