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Massive EVE Online Alliance Disbanded
tnt001 writes "In the world of EVE Online, the infamous Band of Brothers alliance has been disbanded. It seems that rival alliance Goonswarm had a spy in the holding corporation, and he stole money as well as capital ships and other assets. The spy then disbanded the alliance. 'One of GoonSwarm's stated motivations from their early days as an alliance was to punish what they viewed as the arrogance of Band of Brothers. If they've held true to that ideal, stealing the alliance out from under BoB effectively means GoonSwarm has accomplished what they set out to do years ago.' As of 11:00 GMT, BoB lost all its sovereignty (its outposts are conquerable now, cyno-jammers are offline, jump bridges are inoperable)."
Wow, some people must be really heavily into that gamespace. It always amazes me to see articles where nothing in the summary connects to the real world at all.
Bruce Perens.
God have mercy on our souls.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
GoonSwarm basically had this PR coup handed to them on a silver platter, they had done nothing themselves to make this happen.
What is known to have happened is that a player with full director access to the BoB holding corporation, Tinfoil, defected and asked GoonSwarm if they wanted full director access. They obviously replied in the positive, and eventually realized they now had access to the proverbial nuke button on their sworn enemies.
Speculation is rampant in the EvE community, though hard facts are hard to come by. Suggestions include that either this is a case of a hacked account, as the owner was supposedly on some form of military duty when this happened a few days ago. Another, less vocal, minority considers this to be a possible case of someone 'cracking' psychologically, possibly due to the player's military background.
Also, some people feel this event may be due to broken game mechanics, as it seem odd you can just nuke a large alliance into bedrock with a few mouse clicks and 2 minutes of work. Usually it takes either a director vote, or at least a 24 hour grace period, to perform drastic changes to corp policies and organization.
Summary: Not a spy, not GoonSwarm's work. Just a single unhappy defector undoing 4 years of work by some 3000 players in a few seconds.
Disclaimer: I play EvE Online, but am not a member of any of the major alliances in the game.
This whole incident has nothing to do with Goonswarm infiltrating BoB with spies.
The person responsible was "just" a disgruntled BNC director that wanted to go out with a huge bang and GoonsFleet (The Mittani, to be precise) just gave him advice on how to maximize the damage he'd inflict on his way out.
It's a bit more than that. With sovereignty, you lose a large chunk of your internal economy and logistics. A lot of that will not have to be re-acquired, it will have to be rebuilt, from the ground up.
The reason BoB was able to hold on its central Delve systems was that sovereign systems are easy to defend. You have cynos, you have jumpbridges, you have reserves of capitals and super-capitals ready to reinforce. And it helped that Delve was a very rich sector, making it a perfect logistics base.
Those advantages are gone. They have to be rebuilt - and most ennemy corps will not stand idle while BoB regroup. Look at the influence map: BoB has started to reassert sovereignty in pieces, but there's already huge chunks of territory carved. Getting them back... is going to take months. Or a year. Or two.
The whole region is already seeing everyone and their mothers moving in to loot and pillage. More than just a strategic loss, they now have to deal with a large number of enemies and random neutrals coming to play in their space.
Also, the Band of Brothers name was claimed by the Goons, so they can't reform under it.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Sovereignty is a game mechanic which allows several other things to work. It's built by holding a solar system or constellation for a certain period of time, up to a month. Losing it means all of the things which rely on it to stop working (see below).
ISK is the currency in EVE (read gold). ISK reserves, therefore, would be money set aside for later - in this case I believe it was set aside for upkeep fees.
A cyno-jammer prevents cynosural fields from forming in the system. A cynosural field allows capital ships to move between systems, as capital ships are too large to use the stargates normal, smaller ships use. It's an important defensive structure - one of the main purposes of capital ships are to attack Player Operated Stations (POSs), which are used (among other things) to claim sovereignty.
"Capfleet tower" is a little ambiguous, but given the context I believe they're referring to the assembly arrays required to build capital ships. Due to their size, they can't be manufactured in the same places other ships are built - they require a special module, anchored at a POS (the hub of which is called a tower). The capital ship assembly array also requires sovereignty to work. Losing sovereignty means that all the capital ships that were being constructed have been put on hold. If sovereignty can be rebuilt, then those manufacturing jobs would resume, but that will be difficult because the systems are so hotly contested right now - it's likely that the assembly arrays will be attacked and destroyed.
A corporation director has very nearly all the abilities of a CEO - basically a guild leader with full access. Normally that means that one can expel other corporation members, directly manipulate the wallet (where all the corporation's money is kept), and so on. In this case, because the defector had director access in the executor corp (sort of the leader corporation of the alliance), he also had access to all the alliance management options - including kicking member corporations out of the alliance, and then closing the alliance.
I hope that helps clear things up.
Well it matters more than "some city's sports team won vs. another city's sports team". That makes news on non-tech news sites. So hey, why not?
I think the /. i grew up with is dead. This is a huge political upheaval in a Virtual World. The old /. would lap up the meta-game consequences. The old /. would wax lyrical about the shifting social paradigms that would make this a headline. The old /. would figure out how to get the premium client running on a toaster.
The new /. is like a youtube comments page, nothing but vitriol and hate, smart-arse comments by half-wits.
I cite the Boron article yesterday, about 4 million "jokes" using variations on "Boring". I mean...COME ON! People had to then ask for clarification, in the old days people would have searched 1st, asked later. Not now, now its all hate and entitlement culture. Worst of all, no one even knows what the HURD is anymore.
Goodbye /.
billy pilgrim *has* become unstuck in time!
Wow, people wonder that?
That's amazing.
I can just picture them gathered around the water cooler, chatting.
One of them says, "You know, I wonder why EVE doesn't interest Larry enough.".
Another one replies, "Yes, I was discussing this with my inflatable girlfriend last night, and both of us were wondering why EVE doesn't interest Larry enough.".
And then a third person says, "Maybe it's because he plays games for fun, not to be screwed over by other players."
Yes, I can imagine people wondering why EVE doesn't interest you enough.
People who have even less of a life than people who take EVE seriously enough to submit lame articles about it to Slashdot.
Or Slashdot editors who post them.
Or people who anonymously comment about them.
Or respond to anonymous comments about them.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
In other news, I just killed Revolver Ocelot in MGS. It was a really tough fight but I managed to pull it out. Can I get my own Slashdot article too?
I kinda doubt that it impacted greatly the hobby of 2k+ people, so sorry, no.
My first reaction was, too, "that's news? How's that relevant? Did something change in the tech world because of it?"
Then I realized that the "real" news are filled with sports reports and celeb weddings, and I realized that this is basically the nerd equivalent thereof.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm wondering whose fault it was that one member of the alliance had that much power.
If there are mechanisms in-game for shared responsibility for assets and BoB didn't take advantage of them, that's BoB's problem.
If the game forced them to structure their alliance so one person COULD take them down, that's EVE's fault.
You get a gold star! ;) Seriously... you 'get' it. Yes... BoB controlled a very large, very rich, area of the game universe. This activity has made a huge 'hole' in space... the richest part of space. Before, all of claimable space had been claimed and had become fairly stable. This 'hole' has opened up a very rich region for land grabbing and the like... and with that, there will be squabbles, fights, and all sorts of new fun!
There will probably be a few who quit over this, true, but I doubt many will... life in EVE is like that... BoB has a bunch of very dedicated and extremely skilled players in it... I'm betting they will regroup and try to take back their space... which will stir up all kinds of drama in itself.
EVE lives for drama. The game *IS* made by the players. 99% of the game content is made by the players... who is fighting who? what regions are 'hot'? who just screwed over someone else? The leader of BoB said, and it was true, that BoB has been providing the game with content since they formed and first took space. Missions and all the PVE stuff is just the ISK printing press to fund the "real" part of the game by supplying money to players to buy stuff. The production (crafting) part of EVE is massive and an integral part of the game. If you're flying a ship, it was made by a player (and you're always flying a ship). If you fit tech2 equipment onto your ship, it was made by a player. And yeah, you have to have miners to get minerals, people to tend moon stations to harvest 'rare' minerals, and someone to take all those things and manufacture stuff.
There's really no other game with the complexity and depth of EVE.
You know, I fully respect your right not to care about this news, because it has no affect on you. Sort of like how I don't really care about who is the mayor of Palm Springs or whether Grandville High School won the big football game last night, but like it or not, EVE Online has an active playerbase all around the world, and they're the types of people who read Slashdot. If you played EVE, which I understand you don't, you'd understand that this news is epic. In the scope of the game, it's akin to the fall of the Soviet Union. (Two polarized superpowers, and one of them falls.)
To put in perspective how seriously the people involved (not me) take this stuff, the leaders of the disbanded alliance got on flights at 3am to meet in Washington DC (I believe) so they could pick up the pieces and start getting to work on putting together the alliance. Honestly, I'm surprised it took almost 36 hours for an article to get on Slashdot.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Those 2000+ people signed up for a game where alliances battle rivals through various methods. This didn't impact their hobby, this IS their hobby. What they signed up to is a game where this sort of thing not only can happen, but happens pretty often. If this is the first time something like this happened with an alliance this large, great, they got the high score in their game.
The only thing interesting about this whole situation is the "news" coverage it is getting.
It might seem like some sort of big deal because so many people are involved, but this sort of thing is a core element for the higher level play of the game. Maybe if the game didn't focus on this aspect of the gameplay as one of its main selling points to get new players, this would be interesting. This is just a "water is wet" story.
The real headline could be about how one alliance managed to use sites like Slashdot to wave the flag that their rival's outposts are now conquerable. Going so far as to get pseudo news sites with large followings to function as a communications tool and a rallying cry for a virtual world battle is actually pretty interesting.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
Some of the "real" news is pretty hilarious though:
Source: Reuters
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Posting ironic messages on slashdot is my hobby, you insensitive clod!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
An alliance is a guild of guilds.
In Eve, the stupid missions aren't the game. It's the 90%+ of space that's not controlled by any guards whatsoever. A single guild isn't big enough to control much, so alliances form to hold and control a few stars in an area.
They set up huge space outposts, with defensive satellites, spaceship warehouses and repair shops, defensive force fields 80km in diameter, oh yeah it's pretty sweet.
Imagine if WoW or whatever the hell you play (and I used to for 8 months -- had a maxxed out Ranger Cowgirl with Ravager pet who could down anyone except for one other ranger in complete tier whatever purple) except that the PvP areas you laid down your own castles to try to literally own and control the whole zone. You installed automated ballistas and catapults and whatnot. You tried to guard the zone in and one out points.
Yeah. So go back to doing the lame quests and "raids" and other pointless garbage.
Massively multiplayer, team-based PvP. That's what the ultimate goal is. And Eve's a lot closer than anyone else.
Oh, and the bigger ships are persistent and cannot be stored and do not disappear when you log out, and neither do these player space stations ("POS" in Eve lingo, player-owned structures.) So you'd better have some good defense, a big alliance with someone always around to sound the alarm, or be damned good at security-through-obscurity.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
According to this website (far from scientific) the largest guild in WoW is maybe 3600 members. BoB was twice that. I don't believe one of those guilds has ever been compromised in one day through a single act of metagaming. WoW servers are splintered. EVE has a single server, (instance) and everyone who plays EVE plays in a single universe. EVE may have a fraction of the players as WoW, but EVERYONE in EVE knows BoB.
I would bet this is the largest fall of an online superpower to date. I think that's newsworthy.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
In Eve guilds and alliances are like corporations, complete with stocks. This was like a hostile takeover, with the victor liquidating BoB's assets.
I am a member of Band of Brothers and the only thing this has caused is a renewed interest on the part of the Alliance.
For them to remove us they will need to remove all of our moon mining and sovereignty towers. We have hundreds of capital ships and around 2k people waiting for the morons to come running into the chainsaw.
All of this is a pain, but sovereignty is already ticking to regain control. They have a little over two months to destroy us, before we get sovereignty three to re-acitvate our jammers, bridges and whatnot.
Considering we have war supplies and motivation, they will not be successful and their chest beating is simply propaganda.
In the last 24 hours almost all of BoB and their allies have fallen back to Delve to get ready for the fight. Before we mobilized they were tooting their horns about taking stations and anchoring pos's, but when push came to shove they didn't wish to engage.
This is not newsworthy, but a "Blue Falcon" act by a friend of BoB.
When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail
Ahem. Second WoW Expansion Launched, Conquered We also go the play-by-play when Lich King went live and people were seeing the content. We got notified when Burning Crusade went live.
This is the Slashdot Games section. The people who play these games care. I don't play them. I don't care. That doesn't mean the news isn't interesting to a lot of nerds.
Put identity in the browser.
Massively multiplayer, team-based PvP. That's what the ultimate goal is.
For you. I can't think of anything I want less in my online gaming. Of course, that's the problem with some PvP fans... they can't understand that the preference of every MMO player in existence doesn't line up with theirs, and then deride those who prefer other methods by talking about "lame quests and raids and other pointless garbage". God forbid we learn to appreciate the fact that other people like different things.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Actually BoB was only about 2800 members, if that. But when you add in pets and allies (the Greater Bob Community), then its well over 10,000.