Metagaming in EVE - Page 46

As one of those people who used to plant their forehead in their hand when allied folk (even alliance mates) paniced at a single BoB member entering local, this week is a pretty big deal. Here's a personal diary of some memorable events from my perspective. Mini battle-reports if you like, or short war-reports to summarise the journey that's been the most enjoyable period of my gaming career....

November 2005 we took a gang of twenty-five 4S frigates from Geminate to Fountain in an attempt to save a Vertigo Coalition pos from BoB's first cap fleet of 3 (actually 2 cos one was refueling) dreadnaughts. The actual plan to neut & kill a dread didn't come off but we did get a decent scrap against BoB's (battleship heavy) fleet of 60 or so, and walked away with a decent k/d ratio (which was all we cared about back then). We left the system and I later heard (I still don't know to this day if it's true) that BoB lost their nerve and the pos survived. I know for a lot of us who were there that day that the shine came off BoB. They didn't field immensely huge numbers, and they didn't perform in any mystical way. They made mistakes like everyone else, they died when shot like everyone else, their stragglers got ganked like anyone else's. And they did it against a tiny frig gang from the other side of the galaxy. It might not seem like a big deal today but at the time we had 1 dread, something like 10 dread pilots training and a strong desire to pull together the alliance of our dreams then kick all our enemies in the nuts. So this was like a nod that the path we were setting out on was totally achievable.

April 2006 was the month EC-P8R got nuked by BoB/ASCN/.5./F-E, with 600 hostiles in local at peak. This was a far, far cry from the 60 BoB we faced a few months earlier, and uped the ante bigtime. F-E/Kaos had flipped sides, Stain Alliance had shot their load into Delve with little effect. Then ATUK rejoined BoB, and RA nearly fell off the map. Dark, dark times. It's worth looking at the map: http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/crii/12.04.108.jpg The anti-BoB on this map pretty much consists of: NORAD (soon to be eliminated), SNU maybe, and D2 (untested superpower formed from G & TRUST). It's a fairly BoB biased map of course, and there's some non-map entities forming part of the rebellion. Noone in RAWR at the time really wanted a big coalition. Not because 'blues are bad' but because it was hassle and we wanted to be the small tight group that tears up shit, just like people still attempt today. But that ceased to be an option.

Anyone crying about the anti-Ken coalition's blob today, or too much blues, or 600 man fleets, and the EVE sky is falling on our heads, or how we the coalition can't fight outnumbered should note the previous two paragraphs

In February 2007 the counter-coalition finally moved on BoB in force, Goons/RA/TCF were cleaning up the south-east, D2 hit Fountain and got owned. I was in Querious with the rest of the NC in the first BoB vs non-D2 NC cap battle and we got our asses kicked too, to fewer numbers, better hardware, experience and a more streamlined opposing coalition. Our fleet consisted of RAWR, RZR, IRON, TRI and a handful of others. There was very little trust between the alliances. Many caps jumped out without the cap FC ordering it. TRI had enough and fked off. D2 wouldn't let us work with them. Even as late as mid-MAX in October 2008 BoB were still telling us, multiple fleets don't work, caps & support in one channel, one FC. And there's disasters like F-T too of course. Imo, if there's been one overwhelming reason why we've gotten where we are today besides general determination, it's been getting this multiple alliance, multiple fleets thing working effectively despite all the undeniable obstacles to such a command & control setup. Big blobs are not easy things to form, keep together, and wield efficiently, and it's only relatively recently it's really been nailed by us. (Big days in Delve/Querious the past few months had typically 4 or 5 coalition fleets acting semi-independantly but firmly in support of each other and it is an awseome thing to watch when it clicks. I'm doubtful this level of cooperation will feature heavly in EVE's future, because coalitions work most effectively only when winning - a trend I think we bucked about as much as is possible, since we weren't always winning - and because it's so uncommon for so many entities to share the same goal so exactly.) Bck to February 2007, it wouldn't have been surprising if the Querious front disintegrated very fast but somehow we kept fighting for several months. I remember the atmosphere, it was like we expected to lose a lot but everyone was still Xing up, knowing that each battle that went by gave us more experience than it gave BoB.

October 2007. Despite not making much progress against BoB itself through most of 2007 a lot of BoB allies bit the dust in late 2007. Mid 2007 was another low point, most of the north was pushed back, and big chunks taken out of the south. Then to add insult to injury sov3, sov4, cynojammers and jump-briges handed defenders a big advantage at the very moment we controlled the least territory. Titans were nerfed too which made a big difference in the south but almost none in the north. September the 30th saw M.PIRE/FATAL/COW surrender in the north. We'd expected something of a cascade but to this day it must still stand out as the single biggest sudden 'peaceful' surrender of power under duress in EVE history. Cargo scanners & dread fleets enforced the terms of the treaty as M.PIRE/FATAL/COW freighters evacuated. We'd labelled them 'BoB pets' which they weren't really but they were partially loyal to MC. More importantly they impeded the NC from actually fighting BoB which was incredibly frustrating for us, but notably when it was all over many of their corps (and eventually even MC) turned on BoB. BoB/MC conquered FAT-6P to much fanfare, then MC announced they were contract free and began probing the anti-BoB coalition for contracts. Towards the end of the month BoB was forced to retreat from it's southern pet-filled territories. It was without doubt a monumental month but I don't think anyone can claim credit for knowing the 'swing' would actully stick.

February 2008. After a 2009-Delve style razing of Fountain by RAWR/MH/BRUCE/PURE/SMASH and a tougher station-by-station capture of Querious by RZR/IRON and Goons/RA/TCF (following up on the deep south purge), MC and Tortuga capture of Period Basis, PL playing a part on all fronts, IAC and -A- doing stuff, it all fell apart. This should have been the numbers-conquer-all moment, but they simply don't. Not on their own anyway. BRUCE didn't care past Fountain. SMASH threw morale away when they tried to lead the first botched Y-2 seige. PURE and MH ran out of steam. RA lost a titan and disappeared. Goon numbers plummeted. -A- never really cared. IAC was being run by Tyrrax . RAWR was slated for bailing out. We had internal troubles, saw a northern war brewing and wanted to be fresh for it, and judged that it was time to cash in the chips in the south because Delve wasn't about to be conquered. We still debate today if it was the right decision, and it was certainly an uncharacteristicly pessimistic one, but we picked it and did ok ^^

October 2008. Some further cracks had been showing in BoB's armour. I'm sure I'm not alone in being surprised how much trouble lord 2evil's titan caused the GBC in Deklein. Then on to the TVN/Vale cap battle between NC and GBC/Tri where we lost a small pile of motherships which GBC were obviously chuffed about, but the reaction inside the NC was much more interesting because it was the first full on cap vs cap battle with BoB which hadn't gone disastrously wrong. We just needed to fix the simple matter of not sitting our supercaps next to a hostile dread fleet. Then there was the 50-0 cap battle 'defeat' in M-O which only really served to remind us of BoB's arrogance, and a set of four cap battles which went firmly against the GBC. Another monumental October in the north. We kind of knew (or at least hoped) we were good for the Tribute defence, what surprised was how poorly BoB performed and that was obviously setting the stage for a fresh coalition offensive against BoB. (What was even more surprising is that for reasons I can't fathom Molle figured RAWR would sit this counter-attack out).

-A- then did their switcheroo and our job got a whole lot harder. Somehow our plan became to remove -A- then hit Queurious/Delve and my biggest regret about Haargoth disbanding BoB was not seeing how this plan turned out, cos it seemed like a pretty naff one to me. Considering we really wanted to remove BoB, not -A-. February was again memorable for the third year running (and I'd advise everyone to keep October '09 clear too!).

I could add so much more but these were the pivotal moments from my point of view.


As for what this week really means.. Back when the coaliton abandoned the Delve seige in early 2008 plenty of BoB guys were justifiably claiming victory on the basis that their goal was to survive, which they had, and ours was to remove them, which we hadn't. We said it wasn't over. Now we're claiming victory because we have removed Ken, and I'm sure they don't see it as over because they're still surviving. Nevertheless this week is about as much closure as the anti-BoB coalition is likely to get, hence my nostalgic spiel, and I'll also take this opportunity to say it has been a five star war and my hat goes off to everyone who's played any part in it, on any side. Thanks to everyone for 'creating the content'. Apart from the odd game of chess-by-mail between Buddhist monks living in different snow covered mountain ranges I challenge anyone to find a meaningfully complex gaming contest that's lasted 2.5 years, nevermind with some kind of action almost every day. It's approaching real-life world war timescales, and we really shouldn't take for granted how great the game is that allows this, or how huge the stamina of the entities involved has been. It's swung dramatically both ways. Several times. Everyone has experienced highs and lows, epic whelps and epic comebacks, which is pretty much what an ideal game should provide it's most dedicated players. Part of me wants to see Ken dead and buried, but another part kind of wants to see them claiming a massive victory in another 2.5 years time, just because it would be another long serious epic twists along the way. In anycase EVE is definetely going to continue to provide plenty of epicness regardless of which entities are scrapping and I'm probably more excited than ever to find out 'what happens next'. Any speculation at this moment probably has less chance of turning out to be accurate than at any other time.

There's about 10 GBC towers left in Querious/Delve/Period Basis on the cleanup list, coming out of reinforced over the next 2 days.

All RA towers in C-J6 (aka RA Prime) has been destroyed.
Sov will drop after DT. Towers put up today (2) has been reinforced.

Been a uneventful day in C-J6 since RA decided to move all ships out of system before DT and made no attempts to come back in to save their towers.

Originally Posted by llondon hilton (slinktress/molle's american fuckbucket/EVOL)
I wanted to get a feel for how bad this latest CSM exploit really is.

I ran a petition for grief gaming, a EULA violation, and some possible rules to prevent a group of griefers from just handing out new accounts to members as old ones get banned and basically "taking over" the game.

Came up with simple stuff like only non-profit orgs should have in game representation and groups should not use EVE name and publicly promote prank calls, hacking, jihads, etc.

I got initial response of "Goons have over 5,000 accounts we simply can't ban them all" to [oh you just wanted them disbanded?] and this:

Sent - 3/27/2009 9:02:00 AM
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I have to inform you terrorism in EVE Online is fine, tomorrow you can decide to become one and suicide your ships on other players in high security space by example.

I understand your concerns Llondon but we cannot disband their identity in the game as there is no EULA violation. Disbanding their alliance would still affect more than 5.000 players with most of them being honest, this is something our policies cannot allowed.

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to contact us again.

Best regards,
GM Imagoon (name changed for goon spies)
EVE Online Customer Support

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If the GM's are defending Goons because they feel that most of them are honest, then clearly there is no independent judgement left. Possibly, I just happened to get a Goon alt though.

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This all doesn't mean much, except, we have no choice left but to recruit our spouses, cousins, employees, kids and grandmothers to help KILL THEM ALL. NUMBERS matter!!

<3 Llondon

PS> Die Goons (we WILL find a way)

Originally Posted by Lallante (RKK)
Is this a troll? You made a serious petition to have goons disbanded?

Originally Posted by Xrak (BNC.E)
Since sov isnt going to matter can we take this chance to get a better alliance name?

On June 22 2009 10:56 Try wrote:
It's basically been just Atlas Alliance itself boning RA; AAA, Aggression, and SE haven't helped much recently because AAA has its own problems (on the East side against abunch of smaller alliances), while I have no idea wtf Aggression is doing at the moment. IRC/ED are mainly concentrated on regaining their lost territory in Etherium Reach and taking Malpais back.

On June 22 2009 11:00 Bill307 wrote:

Taking Malpais back from whom? Their allies xxDeathxx and Solar?

Originally Posted by Estios (DICE)
So, like, which mmo's are good right now ?

Originally Posted by Waagaa Ktlehr (EVOL Member)
Man, that's some pretty long post. 50% of it is incorrect and 50% is trivial.

Originally Posted by Waagaa Ktlehr (EVOL Member)
I for one think that we need to be more elitist, not less.

Becoming less elitist has alienated a bunch of really good players that used to lead us to victories.

So fuck weak allies, be lean, small and effective instead of bloated, generic and stupid.

When I joined BoB, you got shouted down for being stupid, now I'm being shouted down for calling people stupid. That's where we went wrong. We started accepting mistakes from people.

Fucking weak to be honest.

Hence the OP is shit, it addresses the symptoms, not the root-cause.

Originally Posted by Dianabolic (RKK Member)
Hangman, we left PL in Fountain for a reason - so they COULD grow, so we WOULD have an enemy that wouldn't run and pussy (Hi NC).

We never expected to lose sov the way we did, had that event not occurred we would probably be in fountain right now having a right old slugfest. As it is, PL jumped on the opportunity to delay the day we would fight on that footing for their own gain.

Fair play to them but if we still had Sov in Delve you guys would now be saying "letting PL grow fat in fountain was a great idea".

SirMolle: My part in his downfall.

I rejoined Goonswarm just before the start of the 2nd Great Eve War. I was still flying tech 1 Rifters and Stabbers part of the time. In those days Goonswarm stretched over 6 regions and it took hours to cross from one side to the other. BoB sat in Delve nursing their wounds after the MAX fiasco and things we're pretty boring.

The directorate tried to get an offensive started in Stain vs the Stainwagon, but it never really got off the ground. Goonswarm was getting stale. I got to run missions in Stain though, which was a nice to thing to say I did. Dodging the roaming Stain Empire and COVEN gangs was kinda fun too. They never pointed me either.

Then out of nowhere a random system housing a 10/10 plex caused DRAMA and suddenly we're at war with 1/3 of RA who turns into ROL who ally with AAA (who backstab us) and Stainwagon and I've lost my small home in Estoria and we're fighting for our lives around AZN.

I saw ROL in OOYZ deploy fleets of nothing but cap ships. I saw said fleets destroyed by a fleet of Rifters. I saw AAA break our jump bridges with ease. I saw the front fall back to AZN and last ditch defences hold the enemy at bay with the gates covered in our wrecks and the call for our our friends and allies to save us from a doom that almost seemed inevitable.

ROL was pretty weak by themselves, despite the $10000 US spent to hire Evil Thug his new life and and new teeth. For a month I was part of the attempted Ninja sov-taking of ZS-. We actually gained sov over three times in the system, but it was too far away from anywhere and once AAA took down the jump bridge supply line our attempt was doomed. The highlight was being part of DBRB's BIRTHDAY BASH when DBRB used an old RA password to steal 70 ships from under ROL's very nose. When the make the Goonswarm TV series this will be one of the mid-season episodes. I got a Tackle Typhoon out of it, that I went on to lose in OOYZ. Even though Goonswarm was unable to directly take the system, we kept 20+ towers running right up to the point of BoB's disbanding and the evacuation to Delve.

The nightly highlight was Clorcius's expedition to the ROL 10/10 complex. I can see why CCP left them in the game- it's a guaranteed fight every night. They were a lot of fun and a nice change from the slow grinding POS and Timezone warfare vs AAA. I hope we can one day go back to that plex and own it forever. ROL (and ATLAS who allied themselves with ROL) was one of the big winners over BoB's corpse.

BoB eventually entered the war and things got even more grim. However, our friends and allies came down to help too. I was in a large fleet fight that stopped their advance in the northern area of Goonspace and things looked like they might be turning to us...when Haggorth the Betrayer decided to get a spy inside IGNE...and *everything* changed.

I was about to go to bed when I logged into Goonfleet.com when I see the Mittani's announcement and got to listen to TS as he described what had happened. Never have I laughed so much.

It took me 3 days to understand we were actually leaving EVERYTHING for Delve. I saw more BS wrecks outside the AZN station from pilots blowing them up for the insurance than I have ever seen before or since. It took me a week to pull down my small mod and tech 1 ship building production. I still have over a billion's worth of ship hulls on sale in AZN/VNG/k-9.

For one brief 10 minute period I organised a fleet to defend the AZN undock from a COVEN gang so some of the cap ships could undock and jump out and allow some haulers to evacuate the system. We killed as many as we lost I think which wasn't bad. Killed a Hactor at any rate.

I've never been so nerve racked before or since during those convoys from AZN to 319. South from AZN to k-9, then east till TCAG and then north up to 319. 30-40 jumps, and you were 100% assured you were going to see at least 1 hostile gate camp. I did it 4 times, and never lost a ship. But I saw 100's of wrecks along the way. Goons who had packed everything up they owned into a Badger Mk II and headed west to the promised land and tom leave their wreck and corpse as a warning for others making the attempt without a convot. Dodging gate camps from Stain Empire, AAA, Kenny and the badly named Minor Threat (who were a much bigger threat than the others inhabitants of Delve).

Convoy FC's were often anyone who volunteered or was willing to scout 1 jump ahead of the convoy. Some convoy fleets were wiped out to a pod. Some made it through without any trouble and some scarified every combat ship in the fleet to allow 1 hauler to make it through to our new home base of 319 station.

I lead one convoy from a Mastodon that was the slowest ship in the fleet. We meet a SE gang on the southern route but they ran off when our fleet consisting of 50% unarmed haulers jumped in to engage them. This was probably the most useful thing I ever done in Goonswarm.

Living in 319 was not bad. You had to watch the Intel channel to see if the undock was clear or not. There were 100's of mods at low prices and all the ship hulls for sale next door in YZ9. The aforementioned Minor Threat were always around in a small gangs picking off stragglers and lone ratters and losing bait ships at the 319 undock to Goonfleet carriers hot dropping them. It reminded me of my time in Stain, complete with doing missions for the NPC's to make cash, as ratting and mining were far too dangerous. Every 30 minutes the plaintive wail would go up on GSINTEL "Tackled in belt 319 Send Halp", much to everyone else's amusement.

Our logistics team are really the guys who can say they won the war more than anyone else. Moving over 500 Large POS's to Delve, deploying them, fuelling them, anchoring the guns and then keeping them fuelled for months on end, usually under fire or through blockades. I helped a bit on one system, and it took me all day just to push the buttons on 1 tower. Deploying just 1 tower can take 3 to 5 HOURS and those guys set up over 500. Flying unarmed haulers, Rorquels and jump freighters from one end of the region to another and never seeing a kill mail except their own, they are some of the true heroes of Goonswarm and deserve more acclaim.

The war against Kenny and Barbie kicked into high gear. For my 3rd and last attempt at FCing I lead a small fleet from 319 to J-L when a op was called for and no FC showed up. Didn't lose anybody, didn't shoot anybody. Got to J-L and logged out as there was still no FC around.

Logged in next day to see an entire galaxy of drones, ships and wrecks outside my POS. Kenny had deployed his fleet and over 400 ships on both sides were fighting it out for over 4 hours. That was epic fight which ended in our victory. We were still looting drones and wrecks 2 days later.

My memory is fading already, but I think there was another separate fight a few days later in the same system. I'd joined late as usual and got Titan bridged in. We had 3 different fleets running vs one big Kenny, Barbie and the AAA kids. The battle stretched over 600km and I would travel 100km in my 4km/s inty from one BS primary to another. For one of the few times in Eve I was able to *pilot* my ship instead of just navigating it. On every side the blue glow of an exploding ship would go off every few seconds with laser fire and missiles going in every direction.

Eventually the enemy fleet was dead and the FC (I think it was Imperion) asked for someone to check the gate to see if they were leaving by it. I get there and report that there is about 6 hostiles jumping out...when suddenly an enemy Mothership and with it's ten escorting Carrier battlegroup arrive at gate for no reason whatsoever.

Imperion ordered all the tacklers to get points on the carriers so I ignored the super-cap and pointed 6 different carriers while the combined coalition dread fleet hot dropped the the Mothership and committed an execution of Kenny's entire battlegroup. That's the largest fight I've ever been a part of.

Thinking that nothing could top that and that surly Kenny would retreat for a bit, I went to bed...and missed Shrike's 4th Titan loss. I still haven't gotten on a super-cap kill mail.

After that day, Kenny was doomed. After Shrikes death they retreated into PR-..and the siege began. I did my small part, though not nearly as much as many other coalition pilots. I watched the bubbles that held Kenny Titan's down from logging in. I orbited the gates half asleep and never saw any action in PR- for a month. I spent the time doing NPC missions and taking 5 minutes at a time to burn out of the mass of bubbles around the PR- station. But this lack of action really did kill Kenzuko.

The other lack of action I took part in was the ninja-cap of TPAR. Using only 5-10 pilots (and the notable assistance of a Sigma fleet and DBRB when we asked) we deployed enough towers to take the station system despite Barbie trying to stop us. I got a medal but Mokianna, Endie an the guys who paid for and hauled the towers from Empire, really deserve all the credit and any kudos.

My proudest killmail is this one from the first failed defence of 49-. That's one of SirMolle's alts, who warped to our Fleet Staging POS's uncloaked, and then stayed still long enough for 2 Rifters and a Vigil to burn out to him and get a point on him. I'd blazed past at 4km/s and lost my point but the Goonswarm tech 1 frigates saved the day. Perhaps he thought the Rifter's wouldn't matter.

There was still many months of fighting to go, and I was part of some of the battles in Querious (49-, H74, I1Y/ED-, H74 again) but mostly just POS shooting and providing Wing Commander Gang links. I was there at the end, shooting the last Kenzuko POS in 49-. And I was very fortunate and thankful I could be a small part of and Played My Part In SirMolle's Downfall.

Wulfie wrote:
On the Scrapheap Challenge forums it was stated (I think) that Pandemic Legion did a standings reset (which I think was pointed out earlier that they would) and nuked ships with a Doomsday blast.

Solos wrote:
AFAIK they haven't reset yet. Shadoo did doomsday a station that a lot of people were afk at though.

Seoul_Power wrote:
Yeah, they didn't reset, that was just Shadoo being Shadoo. DBRB fired another doomsday along with him, they were playing around and wanted to see if they could capture the station with doomsdays, they tried to warn the mostly afk fleet and killed quite a few. It was mostly us being stupid, but people are starting to voice how tired they are of dbrb, so I guess it all works out, I personally hate going on his ops, as he is very annoying. I mostly went under the allied commanders. Goons have something of a crippled fc program, as Suas didn't want to share the spotlight and now DBRB always usurps control of fleets from other fcs trying to learn the ropes. I'm personally getting really sick of him, and I'm not the only one.