Greedy Goblin

Thursday, August 2, 2012

The shocking truth, mate

I'm really surprised. Something really eye-opening happened. It started when a guy named Jimmy 4chan, an RvB alt was called "mate". He wrongfully believed that it means "faggot". He demanded it to stop but it didn't. He did not accept explanation that "mate" actually means friend. He was kicked over the drama. OK, someone was being drunk or totally retarded in a casual EVE group. We saw such trade chat "dramas" in WoW and on unmoderated forums too. Trolls and idiots over the internet isn't something new. Move along, there is nothing to see here.

Except he wasn't a random kid spamming trade while standing in Stormwind as an ungemmed spirit-cloth geared warrior. He was one of the leaders of the EVE alliance called Northern Coalition. So Northern Coalition declared war on RvB, which is a newbie-teaching group. I opened up the EVE info and checked NC. They contain the following corporations and members
  • Erasers INC: 59
  • Burning napalm: 149
  • Van Diemien's demise: 85
  • The Ankou: 152
  • Missions, mining and mayhem: 109
  • Best friends forever: 7
  • Ever flow: 83
  • Destructive influence: 175
  • Enterprise Estonia: 90
  • Burn Eden:95
  • Rionnag Alba: 134
  • D00M.: 137
  • Total Mayhem.: 77
  • Invictus Australis: 147
  • 0utlaw: 71
  • Muppet factory: 91
All together: 1661. OK, some are alts and inactives, but still, that's a lot of people. Also, they hold large part of the nullsec, check the official map (big blue on top-middle). So we have a large alliance holding large territories in the EVE "endgame" which goes to war against an newbie-teaching alliance because some alt was called "mate". To make it more pathetic, the war reports aren't pretty for NC.

I can't imagine even a semi-decent WoW guild to do anything like that. Sure the guilds whose primary activity is obstructing postboxes via mammoths and dancing naked in the fountain do such things, but any guild which had just a few first bosses killed or 1600 MMR would have booted him long ago for idiocy instead of placing him to one of the top positions. Also, how could the worst scammer ever become a diplomat in the largest sov-holding alliance in EVE? I mean we are talking about the elite of the elite here, the EVE-versions of Method, Paragon, Stars and we find competence and behavior that would make even the infamous Tractor Inc Farmin NOOBS look bad.

Grown up in WoW I had some expectations about "hardcore". We all have. "Be properly gemmed, know the fights, have X ilvl, hold N/week attendance, no trashtalk" is expected even in "junior league" WoW guilds, the ones between World top 30000-10000. My guild, The PuG was special exactly for being in this range without these, expecting only non-idiotic behavior. The type of professionalism that is considered common sense in even among mediocre WoW guilds seems to be totally missing in the EVE "hardcore".

WoW "professionalism" did not appear from the nothing. It was formed in competition. If you stuck to "friendship" and "having fun", tolerated incompetent or outright childish members, you practically locked out yourself of progression. The guild culture evolved along the progression competitions, the standards of better guilds were adopted by lesser guilds to catch up. Talenting after EJ became so obvious even among beginner guilds that Blizzard removed the whole talent system as redundant.

I'm completely sure that an alliance made of hardcore players who approach EVE sov-warfare with the same attitude as a hard mode WoW guild could easily conquer the whole nullsec or could only be stopped by another formed on the same ideas. The existence of just one WoW-HC-like alliance in EVE would guarantee the total cleansing of sov-null and WH from the "for fun" lolalliances. Why did not a single one formed?

I believe it's the product of the upside-down design of EVE, where the beginner zones are the most profitable. In WoW, if you want to get the best gear of the season, you must belong to the raiding or PvP elite. In EVE if you want the best ships and modules, you don't have to undock from Jita. In WoW the competitive players are motivated to form "no bullshit" professional guilds for the common goal, in EVE the same players play alone. Let's not be naive: most WoW players play for gear and achievements. If these could be gained by fishing at Stonebull Lake, they would do that and no one would raid, just like no one raids Black Temple with lvl 70 locked characters. Players go where the rewards are, fields with no rewards like Arathi Basin normal and EVE sov-null soon be filled only with "i pwnd him lol" idiots and "freindly heplfull peepz". The WoW raider does all the effort and tolerates non-friendly members because he is rewarded individually by gear drops and achievements. In EVE there are no achievements and all gear are available in highsec/lowsec.

I'm starting to see that EVE is a commercial success because it's the most casual-friendly game, but with the space setting and the "dark and unforgiving" lore. Hardcore players are better off playing WoW. To disprove me you shall do two things:
  • Somehow explain how could those heap of idiots called NCDOT hold sov, strike that how come they are not station-camped by 10-men "pirate" corps.
  • Show me just one sov-holding alliance where the recruitment criteria is player skill (measured in any way) and/or effort (time or ISK contributed). Please note that "lifetime kills" and "Skill points" do not suffice since they just show seniority and both can be gained on the character bazaar. Kills/month, or focusing SP according to a doctrine ship are of course an acceptable measures.

Thursday morning report: 125.4B (2.5B spent on main accounts, 1.9 spent on Logi/Carrier, 1.5 on Ragnarok, 1.1 on Rorqual, 1.4 on Nyx, 1.3 on Avatar, 2.6B received as gift).

60 comments:

Steel H. said...

I must say, watching your brain explode in slow motion is super entertaining. Is it that impossible for you to conceive that someone can be both skilled, dedicated, “hardcore”, and a complete asshole? NCDOT is one of the oldest and richest alliances in EVE, and one of the largest supercap blobs, and one of the main representatives of what is known as ~elite PVP~.

“The existence of just one WoW-HC-like alliance in EVE would guarantee the total cleansing of sov-null and WH from the "for fun" lolalliances. Why did not a single one formed?” They would be/have been outblobbed by 5-10 times their numbers and murdered to death. Plus they don’t want anything to do with SOV, they mostly live in NPC 0.0, lowsec or WHs and live for killboard scores and ~elite PVP~. Your buddy Jester’s Rote Kappele and most of the names you saw at ATX are good examples of this.

I would say that the “professionalism” and “hardcore” is different when you are fighting just a dozen scripted pixel dragons that are the same every time you see them, versus fighting other human beings with all the complexities, deviousness, madness, stupidity, etc.., of humankind.

Oh, and NCDOT, soon they are about to have bigger problems that RvB calling one of them “mate”...

Anonymous said...

Show me just one sov-holding alliance where the recruitment criteria is player skill

Rote Kapelle has this, but eschews sovereignty.

You'd have to ask them why that is, but I suspect that they'd tell you that holding sov makes you soft.

Gevlon said...

@Steel: Goons were "outblobbed to death" several times and lived. Why do you think others can't do that.

No, I've never seen anyone being asshole and competent. You mix asshole with being immoral and merciless. Let me explain: African tribe live over diamond mine and I send mercs to displace them, I'm immoral. If I just spend money for mercs to abuse random people, I'm asshole.

Also, if NCDOT is so "elite", how come that RvB has positive ISK ratio in the war?

Rote Kapelle is a counter example: I am exactly saying that holding sov has no in-game reasons. If you go for PvP scores, go NPC null or low. If you go for ISK, stay in high.

Anonymous said...

Ok First : RvB has about 2000 Pilots .. from them are at every fucking hour about 200 online ... many of them are veteran PvP player who just don't want all the politics and waiting bullshit ... NC is rather small .. yeah much space but not to mutch members .. so yeah they have a good hand in politics, but after all that is what eve makes such a great game ... in wow your guild leader has not THIS power to screw everybody up ... and since Blizzard games are perfect predictible you just have to follow the guides .. while in EVE .. yeah RvB are all about Rifters Mate lets kill them .. WHOOPPSS where are the Rifters ?? Hello Battleships ... most losses RvB had where because that they fought so quick that many RvB pilots could not set up their cap transfers etc ...And also in WoW you have group constrains .. so if your guild is 400px or 5000000000px .. it dosn't count because of dungeon restrictions etc .. .while in Eve your number of Pilots online in a hot spot is very interessting ...

Anonymous said...

Also, if NCDOT is so "elite", how come that RvB has positive ISK ratio in the war?
because positive isk ratio isn't the only measure of success.

Your original question - the wormhole corp (ok not a sov holding nulsec entity) certainly does measure player skill (not skill points, or killboards, although these are useful in the pre-screening process), via a trial period of minimal roles.

Basically if you end up being a derpy hoof you get booted.

Also take a look at PLs recruitment threads, they ask you to post fits for certain circumstances, the way you'd react in a specific situation, what you'd bring if an FC asked for XYZ etc... this is pretty much an eve knowledge test (yes you could google the answers but comparing answers with how you answer questions in a TS interview would indicate fairly quickly to all but the most incompetent recruiter that you google-fu'd your answers)

Not quite the examples you were looking for, but an indication that at least some entities take a players knowledge/skill into account in addition to the usual "MUST HAVE 20M SP NO TRIALS MUST HAVE A MIC" recruitment requirements.

Alkarasu said...

@Steel H.
"and one of the main representatives of what is known as ~elite PVP~."

I guess, that would be the reason why they ~elite PVP~ fleets was fitted with 2-year-old fits and was utterly dominated by the bunch of half-drunk, non-coordinated RvB newbies?

"I would say that the “professionalism” and “hardcore” is different when you are fighting just a dozen scripted pixel dragons that are the same every time you see them, versus fighting other human beings with all the complexities, deviousness, madness, stupidity, etc.., of humankind."

When in WoW a bunch of bored hardcore arena players come to newbie PvP playground (which is any battleground, except rated), they farm the population there as if that population came to fight naked and drunk to comatose state. When in EVE hardcore PvP professionals from sov-holding alliance come to punish a bunch of newbies learning the basics of PvP, they get massacred by said newbies, and in a fleet battle, that they are supposed to be good in, no less. You don't see anything strange in that?

Druur Monakh said...

I think four things can be taken away from this:

- Living and fighting in 0.0 takes different skills than living fighting in hi-sec
- 0.0 is just an area, not a mark of achievement.
- RvB is not full of bleeding rookies
- The term 'hardcore' is meaningless.

@Gevlon

There are two big in-game reason to hold sov in 0.0: it's there, and you can.

Now these may not be good enough reasons for you, but that is your own personal shortcoming. And maybe also a sign that a more structured game would be more suitable for you.

Anonymous said...

Thus ends the life of the previous false straw man argument that sov null was the place for the elite.

And I believe it's a nice set up for claiming that your Goblinworks effort can't possibly help such sov null idiots and therefore must be ended.

Who didn't see that coming?

Anonymous said...

Well it's probably because half the characters in RvB are alts of veterans who now have experience fighting in Empire, so no, it's not unexpected.

Gevlon said...

@Druur Monakh: "it is there and you can claim it" is a good reason and I fully understand it. The problem is that it can be fulfilled only by alliance leaders in the current structure. Can you give any reason for Joe#1234 to go sov-null? I mean by signing up for being Drake#1234 he won't have sov. He'll just be grunt#1234, who isn't even told where he will jump in the next second.

Anonymous said...

Again .. RvB teaches THINKING .. while many 0.0 Corps teach OBAY YOUR LEADER ... that is a main difference ... and much all what metters .. and really you don't fight a war on the home turf of a bunch of people with the mindset of "OHH Look funky space explosion" when you are used to fight enemys with simmilar tactics and structures then you do ... NC. is a Corp used to face other bigblob fleets .. Some guys in a wulfpack type fleet are nopt their known enemy ... so yeah as long as they didn't adapt they loose .. now they adapted and fly more alpha strike ships etc .. to blow up the lonly rifter ... What happens: RvB buys like 1000 Rifter and cheers about the new dev blog because now fitting 1000 rifter is like 5h of work and not 10h of work .. so yeah grat win for each side ;) (of course for me also . .since producing rifter and fittings right now is perfect way to print isk ... )

And YEAH ITS FUN ;) to grab a Rifter and crash into a blob at max speed hoping to get 1 shot and your point through .. or to bounce a bigger ship like a bowling ball ...

Anonymous said...

Can you give any reason for Joe#1234 to go sov-null? I mean by signing up for being Drake#1234 he won't have sov. He'll just be grunt#1234, who isn't even told where he will jump in the next second.

I think you are loading the question here with your own prejudice about social interactions. Given the way that eve works no *one person* can hold sov. Mechanically its possible, but you need a social machine to do it. The more bodies you have to throw at the problem the better you can defend it - so in that sense its the 'alliance' that owns the space not the leader. The individual goes to null to be part of something bigger which owns sov. The key thing here is part of something which owns sov.

Joe#1234 'owns' sov because his alliance does. Its as much his space as the next person in the alliance, even if the next person is the leader. There are mechanics in place for usurping leaders who get drunk on their own power, and its not unheard of to have civil wars to overthrow tyrants in eve. TheMittani's name is certainly on the CFC chairman desk but he knows if enough Goons got pissed at him he'd be a dead man.

Joe#1234 goes to null to be part of the drama, part of the social experience and to be part of an entity which owns sov. Joe#1234 does not go to null to take sov for his little self.

if it wasn't for Joe#1234's drake#1234 (and all of the other joes, and drakes) the entity wouldn't have sov. Refer to the goon propaganda "every ship counts"

NP said...

to echo...
1) you seriously mischaracterize RvB as a training corporation. It is newb friendly, but the goal of the corporation is to provide insta-pvp. That appeals largely to EVE vets who are sick of the drama inherent in a social game. Low SP? maybe... but experience trumps sp every time unless it is matched.

2) you seriously mischaracterize how many farks the standard NC. pilot gives about a war against RvB. Farks are THE currency in big EVE wars... when none are given, then its not really news. What's the cost of a HS war dec, 50 mil? lol

Today's post lacks relevance, IMHO

Druur Monakh said...

@Gevlon

Read the answers to your previous post - it was spelled out there. But to save time: some (many?) people don't mind being grunts if it is in the context of building something bigger than themselves. Not everybody enjoys being a leader, or is in it for personal glory.

Your problem in understanding this is that you aren't taking off your blinders. Just look at your own comment: you immediately used the denigrating strawman of Joe #245, instead of actually stopping and trying to think like one of those players.

And I have a suspicion that you simply can't, because you're too enamoured with your own world view to question it on a fundamental level.

Steel H. said...

Different game design, different mechanics, different rules. You keep forgetting that in EVE there is no number limit (except in the Tournament). If you bring 10 guys, I bring 100, and that’s just how the game works. Actually me having 100 vs 10 is a game layer. Gear differences are also much lower that WoWs exponential inflation, damage and HP mechanics are different too. A 1 week T1 frigate can tackle a Moros or an improperly fit BS, an officer fit shiny can be killed by 3 noobs in T1 neut hurricanes. Knowing when to fight and when not IS the fight, more than the fight itself. Go with an improper doctrine against the wrong opposite one, outnumbered 5 times, and in territory whose mechanics you’re not used to (like a 0.0 force fighting in hisec), and surely you’ll get slaughtered.

Say you gather an alliance of 200 expert PvPers, all professionals, all civilized, all dedicated, they all know what there are doing, they all have properly gemmed and enchanted doctrines, everything. So they show up to take someone’s sov, 200 strong. That someone is going to call all their allies, sign new treaties, blue half the map, and dump 1000 ships on them, piloted by 30 day noobs , and murder them while spamming local with ASCII penises. They will hellcamp the elite PVPers in station 24/7, destroy all their POS and sov they may have. Then a spy steals all alliance assets, wallet, drops sov, POS passwords, awoxes shinies and supers. Your elite alliance runs to the kugu and EVE-O forums to complain about evil dis-e-honourable blobbers, before running of to NPC 0.0 to live their ~elite PVP~ lives in peace

There was one mechanic that allowed a small group of elite PVP to dominate a larger blob of “morons” - supercap imbalance and supercap blobs. Through the pre dominion AOE doomsday era and the pre Inferno blapping era it allowed these small, er more “harcore” and “elite” groups (mainly PL, Raiden (ex BoB) and NCdot) to fight against superior numbers (Goonswarm & friends). They were always defeated in the end by better tactics, better metagame, stronger will to win, stronger “play to win”, stronger dedication, stronger culture, and so forth. The final narrative (conspiracy theory) of the supercap nerfs is that Mittani used his CSM position and influence within CCP to push CCP into nerfing supers, thus outplaying his opponents in the metagame. Consipracies, conspiracies… http://www.kugutsumen.com/content.php?198-Goonswarm-Federation-The-Last-Bastion-Of-True-Gooniness . The mega threads about the supercap nerfs I linked you some posts ago will shed a lot of light into this whole dynamic.

Anonymous said...

I think the bottom line you can't find, Gevlon, is because there simply is not an objectivist explanation for going to null sec. That's because not everyone is an objectivist, so they don't analyze options the way you would (or would want them to). People go to null because it's the unknown. People go to null to have a sense of ownership. People go to null to be part of a team. People go to null because they have friends who live there or because they belong to communities who have established homes there.

I don't know that it can be described adequately to you, but there is a feeling of living in and defending space that you helped take and help maintain that you don't get in the rest of EVE. You are absolutely right that a "hardcore wow guild" would not take null. The constant challenge and push to be "the best" simply isn't there. Taking sov and living there is about community building, which is antithetical to your philosophy, and likewise an "ensidia" of EVE.

Rooks and Kings or Rote Kapelle are the kinds of organizations those types of people would be drawn to and join and they very specifically are not involved in sov because it does not get them anything. You will not find a "rational" reason to take sov because one doesn't exist. You just have to accept that.

Steel H. said...

“Can you give any reason for Joe#1234 to go sov-null? I mean by signing up for being Drake#1234 he won't have sov. He'll just be grunt#1234, who isn't even told where he will jump in the next second.”

I am Joe#1234, and I just gave you my reasons in the post from like two days ago. I think you are starting to bump your head into the hardwired walls of your autistic/sociopathic mind and it’s driving you crazy (and me too, trying to explain it to you). It’s all social dude, and more social all the way down. How do I explain Cthulu, or the 3rd dimension to a flatlander? Aaaaaaa….

Anonymous said...

Band of Brothers were pretty "hardcore" in their day - they seriously tried to be good at the game and had the stated intention to conquer all of 0.0 (which they had to give up on in favor of the MAX campaigns as they were stopped by Redswarm in the south).

While they are the object of much ridicule by their former enemies today they were pretty scary during their prime.
They fell really hard in public opinion as they had been on a pretty high pedestal before.

Anonymous said...

To counter your accusations Gevlon:

* In WOW you are ungankable when you're on a PVE server or in an instance/raid. When you get ganked you lose nothing (not even gear repair costs). In EVE you are always at risk if you're in a ship.

* In WOW, even in PVP, you lose nothing of value. In EVE players must take a financial loss for their mistakes.

* In WOW you are protected from scamming by the rules/EULA/whatever, in EVE there are no such protections.

* In EVE you can lose skillpoints

Hence, I believe WOW is much more casual friendly than EVE is as you can never stop progressing.

To answer your specific points:

* NCDot started a lolwar. So what? People want an excuse to fight, and if the war in geminate is going slowly then a bit of highsec pvp can be fun. They may have lost a battle or two because they underestimated RvB (probably thought they would only bring frigates). They hold sov because (a) they have a skilled player base who can consistently bring properly fit ships, (b) they have a large supercap force, (c) they engage in politics to ensure they don't get blobbed by CFC (e.g. staying neutral in the RaidenDOT vs Goons war), (d) their FCs know what they're doing -- in other words skill and hard work.

* Unfortunately holding sov is really not that great if you're rich and experienced, it only provides benefits to the masses of grinders your alliance is probably made of. The alliances with the most rich and skilled members do not bother to hold sov for the reasons I explained above (see PL), the only alliances who hold it are the ones who are supported by masses of drake noobs (CFC). A lot of good alliances require player skill to join: AAA, PL, NCDOT, RnK, rote, SOLAR. Those alliances will let you in based on your skillpoints and kills, then decide whether to keep you based on whether you're a total idiot or not. And no, if you buy a character with skillpoints and kills they will not let you in. Some of the better ones do some pre-screening during the recruitment process, but really it's best done when somebody is actually in the alliance.

Some things to note: CFC alliances are all supported by drake blobs, hence they have no skill requirements to join and don't care if you're a total loller. Their opponents (e.g. AAA) have enough rich and skilled players that they don't need sov at all, which is why they don't care about losing it. The only reason alliances like AAA have sov is to rent it out to fatten their alliance wallet. PL is the only CFC pet which is an exception. They have enough rich and skilled players that do not need sov. However, for political reasons (their tech moons) they must side with goons for the foreseeable future.

Some advice: Stop looking at CFC alliances, they're all a bunch of trolls and loller noobs.

Anonymous said...

I think also you should look at two points,

a) rvb pvp that is all they do , they can't be bothered mining,holding sec, PI, inventing etc etc . All they do is shoot people.

b)Ncdot came to their home systems, and while this isn't to big a deal it pretty much means a Rvb Member can log in jump in a fleet and be in a fight against the War targets.

Wow and eve are not really comparable in terms of PvP. you can pretty much say in wow X person who is Y class will be either A,B,C,D spec. In eve you get X person who is Y race but is flying a completely different races (ship type) with some fit you have not see before .

In regards to the NCdot guys being elite ... no go read the forums the only reason they have not been stomped in to the ground is because they have blobs and will hot drop a rookie ship if they get the chance.... they can't do that against RvB they are in high sec.

Go and join RvB they could always use a new rifter pilot :)

Anonymous said...

"Show me just one sov-holding alliance where the recruitment criteria is player skill (measured in any way) and/or effort (time or ISK contributed)."

does PL count? they had sov 2-3 weeks ago :P

Player skill (and supercaps if you have experience using them) do count a lot in their recruitment process but are not the only criterion (vouch from PL members > everything).

https://www.pandemic-legion.com/forums/showthread.php?31049-NEWEST-APPLICATION-FORM-%28DO-THIS%29

A.6, B.7-9 and C.1-5 and the requirement for a vouch seem to do a pretty good job to weed out the incompetent, the followup questions remove the easily offended and unfunny ones.

If you can write awesome songs or post pictures of your wife all of these requirements do of course go out of the window, so no place for serious goblins.

Anonymous said...

Blob > Skill. For Sov holding getting the most warm bodies onto the field will win the battle.

People that consider themselves skilled look to mitigate the blob. That is why you have wormholes (mass limits) and FW (gates sizes).

As for high sec being the place for the money, it is the same in the real world. The guy who gets rich in a gold rush is the guy that makes/sells the spade back in town, not the people dying in the hills. The merchant princes and City money-men hold the money bags and no sand-box game will ever reverse that. The frontier zone should be loss making "coz we play for fun lolz not no-life cash grind" with a lottery chance for a huge reward.

Minitek said...

Only issue i have with today's post is the fact that it is based solely on one guys failure at English comprehenison.

Gevlon said...

@dobablo: and why can't skilled players form blobs?

@Minitek: absolutely wrong. The problem with him isn't the misunderstanding. The problem is the wardec. No matter how hard he is insulted, he must remain professional. Also, his alliance joined the mate-war instead of booting this idiot and apologizing RvB.

Anonymous said...

Your claim that raiding and PVP gear required heavy investment into the endgame is completely incorrect. Farming immense amounts of gold through the AH then buying runs through raids or rating on teams is fairly prevalent in WoW.

I've sold tons of runs through heroic raids as well as arena rating all the way up to glad titles.

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: I've done that too. However it still needs a "pro" team to carry you.

Unknown said...

@Gevlon: I gave the answer to your strange "only a leader holds SOV" question yesterday, now u still use the same reasoning. SoV is what gangs do, they form up, get some space, wear a red scarf and call them-self "The red scarfs".

The tricky part is to make Grunt1234 not feel this way, he needs to feel important and this can be achieved with simple fandom like psychology, what i explained with my Sport fan example.

It works perfectly in RL and thats why it also works in EvE too, its not this easy to achieve and u need visible indicators like "War's" and "Sov Map" and politics "Eve news" for it.

Anonymous said...

"I can't imagine even a semi-decent WoW guild to do anything like that. Sure the guilds whose primary activity is obstructing postboxes via mammoths and dancing naked in the fountain do such things, but any guild which had just a few first bosses killed or 1600 MMR would have booted him long ago for idiocy instead of placing him to one of the top positions."
Realm-first guild on my server does this all the time. They are ranked realm-first and world-208, but they are very often seen obsructing mailboxes, trolling and being idiots on forums, flaming and flooding ("anal spam") on DS general chat, etc.

Andru said...

Eve isn't the asocial paradise Gevlon expected.

Technically, I arrived to the same conclusion. When I played, I was utterly bored. I didn't like to play with other people, and I found no fun in pissing off other people.

I stopped playing after one month. Couldn't get past the crushing feeling of "What's the bloody point of this game? It's just like real life, only I have to pay."

Scripted, design-driven games might be more to your liking, Gevlon, mainly because being a-social is a very strong asset in those games. Eve?"Hmm, not so much.

Anonymous said...

@Gevlon
The only important factors are blob-size and leadership. All that matters for the general blob is the ability to target the primary and press F1. Skilled players and nothing to a blob that couldn't be achieved from added idiots and you can recruit in greater numbers by not being selective.

Skill only becomes important when fleet-alpha is less than ship EHP. That is why it is irrelevant for nul-sov.

Aeek said...

Never played WOW but got drawn into LOTRO by friends. While I was doing that, I was able to log onto EVE, update my skill plan and log out. Progress. Now that I am focussing on on EVE, its all I can do to pay my LOTRO house bill next to my mates. To progress my characters will take actual game time, never going to happen.

This is why I think EVE is casual friendly. Idiot friendly is another matter.

Hivemind said...

Gevlon: "Let me explain: African tribe live over diamond mine and I send mercs to displace them, I'm immoral. If I just spend money for mercs to abuse random people, I'm asshole."

And which of these two examples would you say that your long-term goal - amass enough power (ISK, people, whatever) to go into hisec and start abusing random people because you don't like how they play the game - most resembles?

Anonymous said...

RvB isnt a newbie teaching alliance. They're a pvp group. They have some of the best pilots in EVE.


(I'd be willing to bet at least 1/4 of nullsec pilots have an alt in RvB)

Johan March said...

Predicting Gevlon will unsub in 6 months. Gevlon, you focus way too much on "winning" Eve. Just play and have fun.

If I might make a suggestion, Gevlon, put an alt in RvB. you might discover the fun of Rifter slinging.

I'm Joe1234 in Drake1234 in a CFC alliance. Doesn't mean I don't do small roams in null or lowsec. Just last night was a small gang roam in lowsec. Our opponents made a mistake and lost. Had they entered our gate camp correctly, they would've escaped. The beauty of null pvp. It's fun.

Hivemind said...

There're a couple of points underlying your recent posts that I'd like to look at seperately.

First, your assertion that EVE is more casual-friendly than WoW. I have to disagree quite strongly with this claim. The key difference for casuals is that WoW reaches out and embraces casual players from the moment they step foot in the game and holds their hand through whichever path(s) they take with breadcrumb quests leading them from hub to hub, region to region etc. and Achievements to serve as beacons outside of questing. That's without even getting into the skinner box techniques like limiting daily progress (so a player gets satisfaction from doing all they can to grind rep/tokens/whatever in one day but still has to come back the next day) that keep casual players engaged.

EVE has none of this - it holds a players' hand exactly as far as the end of their career agents (and arguably not even that; the intro missions drop you at the career station and suggest you do the career agents, but that's all. In contrast WoW would give you a quest to talk to and complete each career agent's chain and track your progress towards this with each mission) and then dumps them into the universe to fend for themselves. One of the reasons EVE has such a high rate of attrition is because a lot of players do that for a little while, get bored because they don't find some deeper reason to play and then quit. The ones who stick around are the ones who find some sort of a goal to keep them interested, whether that's goodfights, leetpvp, claiming sov or even pve goals like getting certain income levels, standings, running a hisec POS or whatever.

The key difference is that in WoW a casual player doesn't need to have any long-term or overarching goals because the game keeps throwing content at them that satisfies basic desires ("Yay, I'm saving the world!") to keep them interested. In EVE the casual player has to go out looking for content that interests them and it's up to them to find a reason to do so.

I think you're actually experiencing some of this firsthand right now - you came into EVE with a goal of "Demonstrate that even a new player can make copious amounts of ISK". I'd argue that the point didn't exactly need proving, it was never in much doubt, but either way you've definitely done that now and I suspect a lot of the frustration in your more recent posts comes from lacking a new goal you can work towards (given that you've gone through several different ideas for goals) and anger that the game isn't doing much to provide you with one the way you're used to from WoW.

That neatly brings me on to my second point: You don't seem to have grasped the nature of a sandbox MMO, you're still thinking about EVE in themepark terms.

As an example, yesterday you said "I know highsec and more or less won the highsec-EVE" because you see hisec as purely a place to make ISK in and prepare for nullsec because null is the "endgame" of EVE. You're viewing it as the same as the levelling zones in WoW, somewhere to build up through before you go on to the final areas, rather than as almost a game in and of itself. You've bought too heavily into the claim (which only seems to come from existing null residents) that sov warfare is the endgame and you're viewing everything else in EVE through that lens.
[Cont...]

Hivemind said...

When people say sov is the endgame what they mean is "It's a thing that a player can join and stay with for the rest of their eve career that changes and adapts over time", not the WoW sense (which I'd define as "What every character is inevitably heading towards from creation"). Here are a few other examples that satisfy the same definition of "endgame" as Nullsec:
Supplying goods to trade hubs through lowsec and NPC null - changes as the metagame changes and demand shifts to other commodities, as points of conflict and thus demand for materiel move around and as other players offer competition.
Faction Warfare - changes as the battle lines change, as large corps/alliances move in and out of FW etc
RvB - Changes as the metagame changes for ship combat and likely will shift as average skillpoints rise for its membership.
Taking over a monopoly on production and/or distribution of one or more items/commodities (in a particular location, across a region or even universe-wide) - this is arguably the endgame for most station traders.
Note that none of those require or need to involve Nullsec or sov at all.

Some more evidence that you're still stuck with a themepark mindset that isn't coping well with the realities of the sandbox, from todays post:
I assume your repeated claim that RvB is a "newbie-teaching alliance" comes from this viewpoint; because you're set on the idea that everyone's training for nullsec (or maybe WH space) a hisec-focused PvP organisation must exist as a training ground rather than as an endgame in its own right. Their goal is fun, low-investment, easy-access PvP, no more and no less. With that much PvPing a new player will gain experience quickly, but that's a side benefit.
Talking about NCdot and TEST as "the elite of the elite here, the EVE-versions of Method, Paragon, Stars". Again this seems to stem from the train of thought "Nullsec is endgame, TEST are winning the endgame as they have the most space, therefore they must be the most elite". This completely ignores the difference between WoW's tightly controlled endgame and EVE's completely uncontrolled sov wars. Imagine if WoW didn't have number caps on raids so people could bring everyone they wanted in with them and face the same enemies. Would Method or Paragon still get world firsts with their small team of elite players or would they start going to guilds that can bring 200+ average skill players to 25 man content? That's what Nullsec sov is all about, not some sort of test of skill on an even footing.
Making ridiculously broad claims like "Hardcore players are better off playing WoW". Really? What sort of hardcore players, exactly? Where's the attraction for the hardcore players who enjoy leading huge alliances? Or who enjoy the political intrigue? Or who just like making other people suffer and seeing them cry? Or who like to be able to point to a map of the game and say "That's my home, I helped my alliance conquer that"? More generally, assuming that there is some sort of single unifying "hardcore" characteristic that is interchangeable from one setting to another.

As a side note and possibly undermining my own point that you can't look at sandbox and themepark as identical, "In WoW, if you want to get the best gear of the season, you must belong to the raiding or PvP elite. In EVE if you want the best ships and modules, you don't have to undock from Jita."
In EVE if you want the absolute best ships you must belong to the PvP elite so you can win them in AT and the other occasional similar competitions that only the most skilled players can get into. Or you can buy the ships when the people who won them sell a few.
In WoW if you want the best gear of the season you must belong to the PvP or PvE elite so you can get them from HC raiding or arena teams. Or you can pay those elite groups to take you on their runs/into their matches and get them for you.

Steel H. said...

"Also, his alliance joined the mate-war instead of booting this idiot and apologizing RvB." - damn, why can't I LOL on your blog? Have any ideea how hillarious this sounds?

As for the wardec, I say: whatev'. It's a game of internet pixel nerd pwnage, so they went pwning some internet pixel spaceship nerds. At least there's some logic there - RvB disses NCdot, NCdot wardecs RvB. Stranger things have happened (http://www.kugutsumen.com/showthread.php?9641-Shitposting-Containment-Unit-The-TEST-Thread&p=327142&viewfull=1#post327142). It's not like they're commiting genocide IRL due to different interpretations of 5000 year old middle eastern mythology...

Steel H. said...

What Hivemind said.
I’ll just add that blobbing and having superior numbers is a perfectly valid game layer, just like having better gems, or I knowing more about transversal/falloff. It’s not just “invite every warm body. You will need people managing skills, idiot managing skills, diplomacy, leadership, knowing how to treat your friends and enemies, propagating a proper culture, maintaining a sense of shared identity, creating structures that are idiot resistant, maintaining an organization of huge scale, and so on. Just as an example, take the perma MWD Drakefleet doctrine. Jester was wondering why you must be MWD capstable, which ends up sacrificing the tank? In drakefleet, the entire fleet turns on the MWD and hardeners, anchors up on the FC and forgets about it, letting the FC control the entire fleet with his ship. By being capstable, it can do this indefinitely, which relieves the grunts of having to worry about such pvp skills as managing cap stability, activating hardeners, controlling positioning and direction, optimal range, etc, they just target the primary and mash F1 (and even this is hard apparently - “wtf, I still see people not anchored up, anchor up you morons, MWD on, MWD on, all you people not anchored up are going to fucking die, why are you not MWDing, why are you not capstable, wtf...”). To an ~elite PVP~ type this is decadence and heresy, to others it’s a superior metagame tactic, that lets you control and field superior numbers. And it is a superior metagame tactic, that pretty much only the CFC can pull off successfully, and it takes considerable know how and intelligence. It becomes evident when you see the opposite – alliances treating allies and pets like crap, inefficient command structures (lol space democracy http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/spymaster/56), alliances collapsing from within due to internal frictions, backstabbing and drama, decadent carebear cultures lacking aggression, fielding large but disorganized, kitchen sink fleets, etc. SoCo is just the latest example of this, while on paper they had equal numbers to CFC, in practice they lacked the organization and leadership skills to actually make it work.

Anonymous said...

You are making rookie mistakes Gevlon.

NCdot got beat by RvB in high-sec, in couple battles...

I am curently TNT member (Goon ally/pet whatever), BUT I was fighting against goons, most of the time with...NCdot.

It takes only 3 of NC. corp to obliterate RvB : Rionnag, DOOM and Burn.

How about give NC. 2 days and 2-3 more battle until they RETRAIN for pvp without bubbles and cap hotdrops, will ya?

I have been fighting along NC, and the guys from above corps are really pro, great FC's and great pilots.

Another thing btw...have you checked WHO is on NC. borders btw, and understand that NC. cannot get involved in high sec "just because they had to pwn some noobs".

Which the RvB are NOT noobs, as many told ya.

Anyway, I will end up telling the usual : "GO IN NULL, LIVE THERE for 2-3 MONTHS AND START TALKING ABOUT HOW bad/good/noobs/social are NC./Goons/TEST/AAA/etc.

Green Gambit said...

RvB will not _teach_ you anything about PvP. If you join RvB however you may _learn_ a lot about PvP.

There are no classes and no teachers in RvB. If you want to attend a class and be taught by a teacher - go join Eve Uni. If you're capable of listening and asking *smart* questions you can learn a bunch of PvP basics.

RvB exists because a bunch of veteran players wanted no-strings PvP. If you want to join, just apply - there's no interviews, no calls for API keys - just wait for your application to be accepted, then shoot stuff. Compared to getting into your average nullsec alliance (or even Eve Uni) it's a breeze - and this is one of the things that makes RvB attractive.

Finally a quick plug for RvB Ganked - which is a weekly null-sec roam organised by a bunch of RvB pilots. It's a fun open fleet that anybody can join - you don't even need to be in RvB - which wanders around null-sec looking for things to shoot. It's a long way from Elite PvP, but an opportunity to learn about nullsec mechanics etc. Join the "RvB Ganked" chat channel in-game if you're interested.

Gevlon said...

@Hivemind: "endgame" must provide some form of challenge. I see only 2 such things, everything else looks trivial and casual-friendly to me.

1: win alliance tournament or some other "elite PvP" goal (having best kill:death)
2: lead an alliance. Most people talk about this here as "depth" of EVE. However it's merely the game of a few people where every other members of the alliance are grunts. Practically it's a real time strategy game between The Mittani, Montolio and co where the zerglings are players.

Would you like to PAY to be a zerglink in someone's starcraft game?

Steel H. said...

Who says it has to be “endgame”, who says it has to be “challenge”? It’s a sandbox; it can be whatever you/I want it to be. There are plenty of places where you can find things that can be seen as “challenge”, if you cannot find it in any form, then maybe EVE isn’t the right game for you. So you just have to find a different game, no point agonizing about it (do try though, it’s super entertaining (for me to watch)).
Well, you got me there. No, I wouldn’t pay to be a zergling in someone else’s Starcraft game. I want a terran battlecruiser please, faction fitted. I want SRP too.

A1win said...

I, too, am an ex hardcore WoW raider, and I've just recently started to play EVE (less than a week ago, in fact). Being a powergamer, I am very interested in "winning", even in EVE. However...

The key to this debate you seem to be having — as already mentioned a few times but not stressed enough — is the fact that there is no player limit on the activities in EVE. This makes EVE completely different from every other MMO game that I know of.

In World of Warcraft, you maximize efficiency by hiring the most skilled players to your guild, because there are only twenty-five raiding spots that need to be filled. You can't just hire anyone, because you'd end up having worse composition than your competitors have. The same is completely true in EVE. Except that instead of twenty-five slots to fill, there is no limit to them. Any player you hire to fill one of the slots in your alliance is better than no player to fill it. Imagine if there were only a total of 40 players in the world playing World of Warcraft, and they were divided into two guilds competing against each other on 25-man raids.

The endgame in EVE is managing people, because at the end of the day, it has the largest impact on your success, no matter what you are doing. Like you said, it is a game of very few people — but so is the endgame in WoW. Only the most skilled players get to the top. The difference is the set of skills that you need to get there, and in the case of EVE, the most important skill you need is leadership.

Steel H. said...

But yes, I won’t disprove your point. Terms of casual/hardcore are completely pointless, especially in EVE. EVE (mainly the 0.0 game) is a game that successfully creates systems where M&S and skilled players can coexist and work together and create synergy. The CFC is the most successful at this, it reminds me of the movie Harrison Bergeron, or just a regular real life army – you have a handful of skilled generals, and a mass of grunts. The generals do all the complicated strategic and tactical thinking, the grunts are required to have some basic level of competence (anchor up, mash F1), have determination and drive to show up for fleets (to shoot POS at 3AM), have a certain level of aggression (not be useless carebears) and pretty much that. It’s a game where the driving forces are egos, e-peens, asshattery, trolling, hatred, griefing, fucking with other people just because you can. It’s a game that works on large scale social bonds and organization, primal feelings of belonging, territory, and clan. It’s a game of having fun by blowing up some nerd’s internet pixel spaceship, because blowing up some other nerd’s internet pixel spaceship is (wait for it) fun!

If that disgusts you... welp.

Anonymous said...

""endgame" must provide some form of challenge. I see only 2 such things, everything else looks trivial and casual-friendly to me."

Why are you seeking endgame content in sandbox style game where most of the content is created by players, corporations, alliances? Basis of sandbox games lie in a fact that you pick a goal and win that, you are not provided one as there is none. There is none game imposed challenge for you to go through.

If you want to have challenge from game, from pve, you should pick up different game. If it is from pvp then you should consider fact that pvping itself is goal, be it null, low, whatever.

Kristophr said...

Gev:

I have an RvB alt.

Yes, we train an awful lot of newbs ... but a lot of us are experienced players that just want to blow off steam with no consequence PvP.

And there are always a lot of us online.

And we just don't care if we get asploded ... we are completely non-risk-averse.

NCDOT can only get so many players to answer the batphone at one time, but RvB pvp-tards are always buzzing aroune Jose shooting the crap out of each other for sh*ts and giggles.

And on top of that, NCDOT can't bring any Caps or superCaps to Highsec.

Yea, the got their heads handed to them. CheckMATE.

Join RvB ... help us violence these clowns. You know you want to ...

Kristophr said...

Gevlon:"Also, his alliance joined the mate-war instead of booting this idiot and apologizing RvB."

No apology is needed.

RvB wants loldecs. The more the merrier.

Punishing RvB with a wardec is like punishing a masochist by threatening to spank her hard.

Steel H. said...

I know what you want. You want a game – a clear, sanitized ring, protection equipment, a referee, a clear rule book written by someone, a narrow, perfect refined set of goals and a clearly scoreboard where you can see yourself, and you then derive “flow” by competing and measuring yourself against others in this narrow goal, and watching yourself climb the scoreboard...

Yeah, EVE is not that. It’s a virtual world (a bad one). It’s a simulation of a box into witch a bunch of idiots are thrown in, doors locked, and keys thrown away. It’s just like in those dystopian movies where there is an autonomous prison somewhere with no guards, just a walled in city or island, where the society has thrown all the rejects and let them fend for themselves (and/or kill each other). Or a post-apocalyptic future with no laws. Or Lord of The Flies, or... In here, we derive flow from surviving while trying to prevent other idiots from surviving. It may also explain why there are no decent, "professional" players in here (we've eaten them all http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRHu25_faUw).

Anonymous said...

re "and why can't skilled players form blobs" they can but in general will not. Because it is not fun to them. So if they are really motivated due to being insulted or fighting for traditional home or survival then perhaps. Besides, a blob lowers the skill cap which benefits the less skilled.

So the truly amazingly skilled part of EVE is the culture and strategy of running an alliance. Knowing how to get the most people and motivate them better is key. 2000 people with 80% participation is much better than 1000 people with 30% participation. Both of those numbers are caused by the leadership.

I think the dirty little secret of EVE is not that it is more casual friendly (although EVE Offline in high sec is quite easy for the solo player), but rather how irrelevant that the oh-so-revered combat is. Remember all your EVE stories - except for the 7 day noob tackling a Titan - they rarely involve fair combat. it is the meta gaming. As BoB, the Mitanni and their rivals/successors move pieces around the chess board and organize themselves, that is very important. Whether you do good or great really matters in Alliance Tournament or WoW progression raiding. But after all the recruiting, politics and strategic planning play out, whether CFC or their opponents play at 120% of their norm or 80% does not matter near as much as they think.

As others have said, this is not a themepark where you are the Hero (like the millions of others.) Just like on the Russian front in WWII, numbers matter. It's one of the great things about EVE. IMO, if numbers matter the wise focus on improving their numbers and hurting their rivals.

Anonymous said...

I want say you have gone all social with your comment about "ISK positive"

E.g. If you have 20 times the ISK as your opponent and are playing to win not admire killboards with the other socials, then why would you care if the ISK ratio is 2 to one against you.

Montgomery did not care if he was ISK-neutral with Rommel - he had a lot more resources and he leveraged that.

Hivemind said...

@ Gevlon

First off I'm obliged to express scorn at your claim "everything else looks trivial and casual-friendly to me". I'm not going to say you're wrong, mostly because at this point I no longer have any idea what your definitions are for "casual" and "hardcore". What I can say for sure is that you have nowhere near enough experience of "everything" to make such a sweeping judgement. You've experienced a tiny fraction of EVE first hand and you've read about some of the other bits, but that's all. Claiming there're only two things in EVE that count as challenging based on that is incredibly short-sighted.

Other than that I had to think quite hard to figure out how to reply to your comment but I think your problem is that you're still thinking from a themepark perspective and trying to fit the sandbox around that framework. The key difference is that a themepark is about the destination whereas the sandbox is about the journey.

Allow me to elaborate: In a themepark (we'll use WoW as our example) what matters is completing objectives - beating the boss, getting the loot, earning enough arena score for a particular rank, getting enough tokens for a gear item, whatever. The journey, the process you go about achieving these goals, is just an obstacle in your way. It might make the end result sweeter, but the payoff only comes with completion. This is why the continuing development of a themepark consists of adding more destinations - new raids, new arenas, new tiers of gear etc.

In a sandbox there are no defined objectives for you to complete and any sort of long-term goals are subject to interference from other players so you cannot count on achieving them. You can count on making progress towards them, hence why I say it's the journey that's important. You cannot guarantee that you can make X ISK in Y time by trading because the markets you trade in could be flooded, your goods could be lost in transit, PLEX prices could spike or unexpected competition could show up. On the other hand you can choose "Make ISK through station trading" as a journey, maybe with "Make X ISK in Y time as a goal" and deal with the complications as they come up and maybe not meet your goal but enjoy (and hopefully profit from) the journey all the same.

The problem it seems like you're having, at least to me, is you're looking for a themepark goal without caring about the sandbox journey to get there. For example, you've said yourself that while you want the One Empire to happen you don't care how it happens or even if someone else leads it, so long as it happens. That's what I'm talking about when I say you're not interested in the journey.

In order to find something in EVE that you will enjoy doing you need to stop looking at what your final goal is - unified nullsec, highsec purged of M&S, you in supercaps, whatever - and look for a route that will get you there that you actually want to take so that you're actually engaged with the game even if you don't make it to your end goal.

Finally, your question "Would you like to PAY to be a zerglink in someone's starcraft game?" is deliberately misrepresenting the situation. If you want to make it relevant to EVE it should be more like "Do you want to be in control of your own zergling in someone else's starcraft game, with an endless stream of replacement zerglings for when you die handed over to you so you can jump right back into the fray and perpetrate brutal violence on some unsuspecting terrans?" Phrased like that I think there's a lot more people who would be interested in saying yes because they don't care about the starcraft game, they just want to be ripping up Terrans and Protoss.

Dioxin said...

Assuming you're right and sovnull is full of remtard pushovers, taking NCDot's systems for yourself should be a breeze.

I eagerly await the day when you start "winning" EVE by planting your one empire flag all over NCDot's former turf. Until then, this "my game is more hardcore than your game" talk is just more pointless e-peen posturing.

Sugar Kyle said...

It's kinda sad, Gevlon. People keep saying, "Come play. Come see EVE. Come play Eve," and you are telling them that they are not playing right but you haven't played these parts of the game.

It really is all about "us" in Eve. Even if "us" is terrible at Eve having that group creates an interior support and then you have fun.

I just don't see where you are having fun. Not every day is fun. Some days are good some days are bad.

You keep shoe horning everyone. I understand if you find what various groups are doing 'boring. However, Eve will let you go forth and do what you want to do or at least try to do it.

Failure is an option.

And its all about "us". I wish you could meet someone that you respected enough to listen to them. Then, maybe you would get a taste of how it feels for those of us who follow our corporation leaders.

I respect mine. I listen to them. I do a lot of what they say and suggest. In return. They respect me. They listen to me. They do things to make my life in Eve better. My being in the corp helps to improve their lives.

Sometimes, its nice to log on and get a flood of, "Hi!" from the people you fly with. These same people you hand your in game safety to. You expect them to be there with the pewpew. They will be there without it as well.

If you want an anti social Eve game play, you can have it. You can try to carve it out of what is already there. However, you are not going to convince the successful parties and the happy parties and all of us who log in every day to play that playing as we have enjoyed is wrong because we shouldn't play with other people to be successful.

It just feels as if you are still watching and not playing. Everyone is calling for you to come and play and for some reason that's upsetting you.

Anonymous said...

Are You looking for challenge? Try to run L4 security missions on T1 destroyer as I do. Totally pointless ISK or time wise. Ships I'm loosing costs much more than rewards. But It is really challenging. (At least for me)

Why I'm doing it? Because I can.

As was said before, there is no Deathwing in EVE. You have to set you own goals. Sov is not only endgame in EvE, you can invent as many as you want.

Anonymous said...

Gevlon, before moving on, I'd like to read your thoughts on the one thing in EVE business that boggles my mind.

It isn't that there is great money in trade, or that trade scales greatly with capital unlike other ISK making activities.

It's the "why" was it so easy to hit the 100B. How come the market was so off-the-mark and unhinged that your months old alts with no fully maxxed trading skills and reputation still found vast margins to undercut.

Really, it was a bit like going into fast food and finding out that your brand new company can easily undercut McDonalds and KFC both by 30% and still make billions. What's going on here?

If there were "boiling point" competition on the market prior to your arrival, there should have been less room to undercut and more importance in maxxed out trader.

If there were a cartel, firstly, where are all the trillion-ers that presumably had years of fixed prices prior to you. I know a lot of people in EVE and only a tiny handful of them are trillioners. Moreover, if there were such trader trillioners-in-a-cartel they could have easily outspent you.

Finally, the third possible explanation I see...the market of EVE was what you'd call M&S. Seeing that EVE is a sandbox and her market is presumably quite similar to real world markets, that's saying something about humanity.

Dioxin said...

I just thought of something.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/04/10/wow-player-reaches-level-85-without-killing-a-single-mob/

Is this guy hardcore leet by "professional" WoW standards? Because you're kind of like the EVE version of him right now. You dedication and focus in trading produced impressive results... in trading, just like that guy's dedication and focus produced impressive results in non combat/quest levelling.

But let's be honest here. You haven't done a single EVE "boss raid", yet you're talking about the game like you've defeated the Mitts King atop Mt Goon a dozen times over. How would you respond if that player I linked trash talked your professional WoW guild for being too casual and seeking challenges in all the wrong places? Your overall critique of EVE makes about as much sense right now.

Vicodin said...

@Gevlon
"However it's merely the game of a few people where every other members of the alliance are grunts. Practically it's a real time strategy game between The Mittani, Montolio and co where the zerglings are players."

Orchestrate a massive, historic heist or scam (requiring 1b and then disbanding the corp was a good start)

The social engineering game is very much alive, and I have a feeling it will challenge you (specifically) the most.

Azual said...

The thing you're missing is that Eve sov warfare is primarily a numbers game. Not just the numbers you have, but the numbers you can effectively motivate and mobilise. If you have a 5000 man alliance and can regularly get 1/5 of that turning up to fleets, you're in a very good position.

Getting those kinds of numbers in the first place means you can't afford to be *too* selective - you can turn away the really incompetent, but if you only recruit the elite of the elite you'll simply never get the numbers. The eve memberbase is a fraction the size of the WoW one, and a single sov entity is far larger than a WoW guild in comparison to the total pool available. There *are* corps which recruit in this way, but they're rarely large enough to make a difference in sov warfare even if they wanted to.

Now assuming you have your large group of people, how do you get them logging in to your fleets? The answer is you make it fun - you find people for them to fight, you win those fights, you spin propaganda, and you generally do things that'll keep your alliance having a good time so that when they sit down to their PC in the evening they think 'I really want to play some Eve'. If you're not doing anything fun, your members will stop logging in or will go join someone who is.

Anonymous said...

@anonymous

Take a look through Jita, even without undocking and spending the hours on multiple alts hauling half way round the galaxy that Gevlon did, there is easy 10% to be made on fast moving items.

You can buy items in Jita, take 1 jump to the neighbouring region and put them up there for 30% or so over Jita price.

The fully maxxed traders rarely use their 305 orders, or undock. Most of the ones I know in the big money category (the ones who drop 70B+ into a mineral for lols to play about with the price) use less than 10 orders, and look at the market once a day unless they are manipulating.

Your RL example for finding the margins is that if I set up a shop in a capital, but buy my goods from out in the sticks, or some country that is less economically developed, then I can undercut the prices by a larger % and make a nice profit.

If for example you go from Dod, and fly 6 jumps, this takes you through 3 unpopulated regions. You can do 1 of 2 things, you can buy in dod at bulk prices, ship out for 200%, or, buy out in the sticks from people dumping mission loot etc at rock bottom prices, and hop back to dod for fast turnover

Even within the same region, you can sell way over hub price if you go to the manufacturing hubs, so you can fill your ship with mins etc at hub price, go out 4 jumps, sell at 50% over hub price. Neither of these 2 examples require babysitting orders, you just put them up, and let them sell.

Anonymous said...

Just to clariffy.

RvB does not 'teach' as such. It throws people in the deepend, and fosters an environement where shipsplosions (yours and others) is a beautiful thing.