Why I don't like empire wars

Before you pull out the "HTFU" or "carebear" or whatever, let me be clear. I don't mind losing the ships. I don't mind even losing the fights. If (and that's a big if) If we learn to play the game better, then it was all worth it. But this is my ranting post. Let the rant begin!

Station Games suck
I'm not complaining about the mechanic. I get it. You sit at the undock in a ship with a big enough buffer and good sensor boosting, and you can lock your opponent at the station, or just dock up if they actually start to damage your ship, making your ISK war look better. Here's what I don't get. How is that fun? I mean, if your idea of fun is already station spinning, or risk-free PvP (although let's face it – most people prefer risk-free), it's a valid game choice. But I hate station games. Worst part about them is trying to help a new player understand the tricks of surviving (or escaping) station games. Show session timer on? Wide undock or kicker? Instaundock created for that station? Understanding of the 30 second session change? Ok, now with all that if you undock into a hostile, you might survive. I hate them. I don't like to play them. And although in our current war the opponent loves to, I'll just make insta-undocks and go play somewhere else.

Neutral RR is fraidy-cat warfare
Oh, I get it. Neutral RR is a legitimate game tactic. After all, once the neutral party provides remote rep, you have aggro for 15 minutes. But this is what I hate about it:

[wartarget] Why won't you engage 3:1 odds?
[corpie] More like 3:2 with your friend here
[wartarget] What do you mean? He's not in this war
[corpie] Whatever...

Don't play stupid games with us with Neutral RR. If your best friend in EVE is in local flying an Oneiros, and you are in a armor tanking ship, they are going to remote rep you during your crappy station games. Just be honest with yourself and us - mostly because your assumption of our stupidity is annoying.

Smacktalk takes skill
I smack in local (sometimes). Usually I'm a bit self-deprecating. It's my style, and it helps me deal with losing ships. But your smacktalk needs to improve.

[neutral rr] I don't need expensive ships to win this war
[wartarget] You guys suck
[sw] Um, my bomber cost about 20 million rigged and loaded. Your Brutix is 60+. Fail math?
[neutral rr] I'm not in a Brutix. Fail scan much?
[sw] Sorry, yeah. Oneiros is 80 million plus just for the hull. Try again...

Experienced players need to educate new players
Usually we are pretty good at this. But this was painful. After our team has GCC (in losec, so safe from CONCORD), the newbie we are defending (in his Drake) gets caught trying to fly back to home base - on a hisec/losec gate. He gets back into hisec, and the wartarget is there to engage him. He's screaming in fleet for help, and we are unable to help him. GCC in hisec = CONCORDed. Three combat ships in losec might help you get home. Three pods in hisec do nothing for you. And, in times of war, everyone needs to be on comms if anywhere near the warzone. We don't keep a teamspeak server up and running 24/7/365 (well, 90% uptime) for show.

War Decs are for Empire Grief
Let's face facts. War Decs are for empire. They exist to grief nullsec alliance logistics, and to cripple empire-based corps, because in nullsec it doesn't really matter. In nullsec you don't need some fancy star on red background to know who you can shoot - you can shoot anyone anywhere. On the bright side, being involved in an empire war is educational. I'm learning a lot about empire war tactics, and the more I learn, the more I wish I were still in nullsec. The other thing about this is, it makes our carebears sad. I mean this guy is in it for the grief. He follows our carebears to their 2nd or 3rd tier agent systems, usually in a covops frig to probe out their missions. He hasn't (yet) got a combat ship in those systems to actually engage them in missions, and they are (so far) smart enough to dock up when he enters local.