Important note: those who sent me killboard data, please log in, because I'll need you for the February data!
A Goon pet lost his ship and pod in higsec. Since he is from a PvP alliance, I'm sure he put up hell of a fight and had fun, just like this RvB pet.
Goons lost their space several times in their history and took it back again. When they had no ships, they returned in Rifters. Having lions in your nullsec alliance who live outside of Sov to avoid being blobbed can only stop Goons from winning. But you can't defeat them, because you can't touch their most valuable asset: their narrative, their identity. These make them log on again and again and get into hellcamps, bombless bombers or ratting ships.
Sov-related gameplay can be summarized as "pressing F1 under 10% TiDi" and sometimes "shooting multi-million HP structures in subcaps", with the bonus of "retards trolling channels". No one plays this for fun. This is a grind, a means to an end. But what is the end? Where is the fun?
"Being with friends" works on small corps where people actually know each other. But the social mind isn't capable of processing more than 150-200 "friends", which puts a limit to friendly groups. A group of that size in nullsec is nothing.
"PvP-ers" know something that most fellow EVE players don't: they can PvP. What they know is largely irrelevant in nullsec, as timer battles are determined by numbers and doctrines (ISK) and not skills. But the PvP-ers really belong to an elite minority and they are proud of it. They are eager to prove anyone their superiority. When they succeed (and they mostly do, because they can PvP), they are having fun.
Industrialists, incursion runners are doing the same, just replace "know to PvP" with "know to make ISK".
But Goons are self-declared bad at EVE. This is why they are winning in nullsec battles by the way: they don't waste time on small gang PvP or prefer moneymaking over fleets. So they are too many to enjoy friendship, they can't be proud of their skills in any aspect of the game and their gameplay itself isn't fun. Where is the fun that makes them log in?
Their source of fun is that they are leagues better than "pubbies" in everything. In the Goon mythology, highsec is full of "pubbie shitlords" who are risk averse carebears who have no impact on absolutely anything and have no friends and can't PvP and their wallet is nothing compared to moon income and ... and ... and... Every time a social person thinks of himself as a Goon, he is filled with the warm, cosy feeling of unconditional superiority. This is why I keep comparing them to racists: they also believe to be superior by birth, without even making an effort. Of course one can only think of himself as a Goon if he is doing "Goony" things, so he goes trough the grind of hellcamps, bombless bomber fleets and endless ratting. This is why a Goon logs in: to feel superior to "pubbie shitlords". This is why he laughs off losses, as being defeated by another nullsec member doesn't change the "fact" that he is superior to the pubbies.
To upkeep this narrative, they actually have to do things. Here comes Miniluv, Burn Jita, Hulkageddon, highsec POCOs, recruitment scamming. These events and methods are means to actually experience (illusion of) superiority. The Goon who joins them or even reads about them is enforced in his belief that he is so much better than these "shitlords" that they don't even belong the same species.
So along comes Goonie#5432 travelling in highsec somewhere. Maybe to shop, maybe to get to the other end of the galaxy after missing the convoy, whatever. He looks at the "pubbies" on the gates and can't help feeling good. I mean "look at these poor, skilless, scared, useless pubbies"! He imagines the "pubbie intel channel" is exploding and carebears are docking up in the whole region at his sighting. Every ship warping off from his grid is piloted by a "shitlord" who'll have to replace pants after seeing him on the overview. Others are full of envy of his Goon membership, something they'll never have. His heartrate is elevating, his skin runs red of blood, tears get to his eyes. "It's so good to be me and not them" - he thinks, as sweet memories of last Burn Jita are dancing front of his mind's eye.
He is moments from being fully immersed in awesomeness when suddenly shield alert! Armor alert! Hull alert! Explosion! Podded! What? WHAT? But, but I'm a god to them, they can't touch me! How could pubbie shitlords do that?!
You can take every nullsec system from them and they come back laughing. You can take every ship from them and they come back in Rifters. But if you make a Goon afraid of coming to highsec, because the "pubbies" kill him on sight, he'll stop logging in. His feeling of superiority is the most valuable asset of a Goon in EVE. Take it from him and he's left with nothing but a bombless bomber, a participation link, a multi-million HP structure and TiDi.
This is why highsec wardeccers are an existential threat to GSF. This is why they created their highsec pet RvB, long before even Marmite was created. Their purpose is to fight off the actual wardeccers and to protect Goons during Burn Jita, upkeeping the narrative, because for Goonswarm to exist, the believable narrative of "we can do whatever we want to pubbie shitlords" is essential. But there is a problem:
A Goon pet lost his ship and pod in higsec. Since he is from a PvP alliance, I'm sure he put up hell of a fight and had fun, just like this RvB pet.
Goons lost their space several times in their history and took it back again. When they had no ships, they returned in Rifters. Having lions in your nullsec alliance who live outside of Sov to avoid being blobbed can only stop Goons from winning. But you can't defeat them, because you can't touch their most valuable asset: their narrative, their identity. These make them log on again and again and get into hellcamps, bombless bombers or ratting ships.
Sov-related gameplay can be summarized as "pressing F1 under 10% TiDi" and sometimes "shooting multi-million HP structures in subcaps", with the bonus of "retards trolling channels". No one plays this for fun. This is a grind, a means to an end. But what is the end? Where is the fun?
"Being with friends" works on small corps where people actually know each other. But the social mind isn't capable of processing more than 150-200 "friends", which puts a limit to friendly groups. A group of that size in nullsec is nothing.
"PvP-ers" know something that most fellow EVE players don't: they can PvP. What they know is largely irrelevant in nullsec, as timer battles are determined by numbers and doctrines (ISK) and not skills. But the PvP-ers really belong to an elite minority and they are proud of it. They are eager to prove anyone their superiority. When they succeed (and they mostly do, because they can PvP), they are having fun.
Industrialists, incursion runners are doing the same, just replace "know to PvP" with "know to make ISK".
But Goons are self-declared bad at EVE. This is why they are winning in nullsec battles by the way: they don't waste time on small gang PvP or prefer moneymaking over fleets. So they are too many to enjoy friendship, they can't be proud of their skills in any aspect of the game and their gameplay itself isn't fun. Where is the fun that makes them log in?
Their source of fun is that they are leagues better than "pubbies" in everything. In the Goon mythology, highsec is full of "pubbie shitlords" who are risk averse carebears who have no impact on absolutely anything and have no friends and can't PvP and their wallet is nothing compared to moon income and ... and ... and... Every time a social person thinks of himself as a Goon, he is filled with the warm, cosy feeling of unconditional superiority. This is why I keep comparing them to racists: they also believe to be superior by birth, without even making an effort. Of course one can only think of himself as a Goon if he is doing "Goony" things, so he goes trough the grind of hellcamps, bombless bomber fleets and endless ratting. This is why a Goon logs in: to feel superior to "pubbie shitlords". This is why he laughs off losses, as being defeated by another nullsec member doesn't change the "fact" that he is superior to the pubbies.
To upkeep this narrative, they actually have to do things. Here comes Miniluv, Burn Jita, Hulkageddon, highsec POCOs, recruitment scamming. These events and methods are means to actually experience (illusion of) superiority. The Goon who joins them or even reads about them is enforced in his belief that he is so much better than these "shitlords" that they don't even belong the same species.
So along comes Goonie#5432 travelling in highsec somewhere. Maybe to shop, maybe to get to the other end of the galaxy after missing the convoy, whatever. He looks at the "pubbies" on the gates and can't help feeling good. I mean "look at these poor, skilless, scared, useless pubbies"! He imagines the "pubbie intel channel" is exploding and carebears are docking up in the whole region at his sighting. Every ship warping off from his grid is piloted by a "shitlord" who'll have to replace pants after seeing him on the overview. Others are full of envy of his Goon membership, something they'll never have. His heartrate is elevating, his skin runs red of blood, tears get to his eyes. "It's so good to be me and not them" - he thinks, as sweet memories of last Burn Jita are dancing front of his mind's eye.
He is moments from being fully immersed in awesomeness when suddenly shield alert! Armor alert! Hull alert! Explosion! Podded! What? WHAT? But, but I'm a god to them, they can't touch me! How could pubbie shitlords do that?!
You can take every nullsec system from them and they come back laughing. You can take every ship from them and they come back in Rifters. But if you make a Goon afraid of coming to highsec, because the "pubbies" kill him on sight, he'll stop logging in. His feeling of superiority is the most valuable asset of a Goon in EVE. Take it from him and he's left with nothing but a bombless bomber, a participation link, a multi-million HP structure and TiDi.
This is why highsec wardeccers are an existential threat to GSF. This is why they created their highsec pet RvB, long before even Marmite was created. Their purpose is to fight off the actual wardeccers and to protect Goons during Burn Jita, upkeeping the narrative, because for Goonswarm to exist, the believable narrative of "we can do whatever we want to pubbie shitlords" is essential. But there is a problem:
- Goons can't defeat highsec PvP-ers in small gang PvP, because they suck at PvP.
- They they can't capture essential structures by bloobing as there are none in highsec.
- They can't use "metagame" because there are no alliance level assets in risk (see more tomorrow).
- Unlike the other nullsec alliances, Goons can't even ignore highsec, because their identity depends on "we can do whatever we want to pubbie shitlords".
50 comments:
How can you defeat goons in hisec, since they don't live there? It has as much sense as talking you can defeat them in wormholes. Surely, you blow some who venture there but that's all. They still own half of eve.
Hmmm...
Your post is very thought provoking. but I see two major flaws.
Before I move on to that, briefly I commend you on identifying that morale is *very* important in EVE victory. If your members don't think that victory is possible, if they stop logging in for fleet ops, then you will lose. I 100% agree with you on that.
The first flaw is that I'm not sure you really understand goon culture. To be honest, I'm not 100% sure *I* get it either, but your analysis doesn't ring true to me. You're an admitted asocial, you aren't well placed to make this kind of analysis, and it would be wise to be careful.
The second flaw - and this one I think you will understand - is *numbers*.
If I accept your premise that Goons play Eve mainly so they can feel superior to high-sec dwellers (doesn't that sound a bit ludicrous?), the solution is, as you say, make them fearful of said highsec dwellers. And you've accomplished *something* - you've essentially more than doubled the size of Marmite. Some of those new members could be new to PvP. Bravo, that's a great thing - whenever someone stops being a carebear, it's great for EVE.
*but*
Marmite was already there in highsec killing goons. You've added a few hundred to their numbers, and allowed them to attack goons more often. But there are SOO many more highsec dwellers who are still unable or unwilling to fight!
Before you started this campaign, Goons seemed to be quite secure in their feeling of Gooness despite Marmite blowing them up frequently. Adding a few more hundreds won't make much of a difference. To use an analogy, If I was willing to go outside despite there being 2 mosquitoes, I will be willing to go if there are now 5. If there were suddenly 100 times more mosquitoes, then I wouldn't! ...but that hasn't happened yet.
As the goons still have multitudes of "puplords" to mock and gank, their feeling of superiority will remain intact.
You saw how difficult it was to change people's mind with your miner-ganking crusade. You are facing the same fundamental problem with highsec dwellers - too many of them to reach, too many of them unwilling to change.
LR
I dont want to burst your bubble, but for as long as I remember people in goons were told "dont go to highsec, we have wars, you will die".
Yes you will kill the retarded pilot in highsec (good for you) but thats bound to happen if you perma-war a 40k pilot coalition. If you are deluded enough to believe that you are having any meaningful impact on the CFC or Goons, your are mistaken. There is no reason the non-retarded member has to go to highsec with his in-corp character.
No, The Mittani owns half nullsec. Goonie#1243 only owns a bombless bomber.
@LR: you are right. Lemmings and permawar-Marmites aren't biting Goons enough YET. But I'm working on it. My goal is to take all their structures and reach a point when venturing to highsec for a Goon is just as safe as flying into PL space.
@Last anonymous: indeed true. However if I remove all the retards from CFC, not much will be left.
Much respect for having the finesse to attack the goonswarm narrative.
I don't quite have your confidence that it will be a successful attack, but I do think it's a clever one.
@Gevlon
This is a game about space-importance. A significant amount of nullsec corps / alliances are out there, holding to their sovs, because they find the very act of holding to their sovs fun.
I am a bit fuzzy on exact mechanics of said fun, because holding sov seems mostly like a virtual job than anything else, but enough people are doing it for it's own sake, so there.
Regardless of whatever happens in highsec, goons are still very successful sov holders.
I can gather how morale is the most important factor in pixel wars, but just making highsec more secure from goon agression is not going to be the killing morale blow here.
Another 2-parter, Gevlon, sorry...
Before I get to this post, just something from the last one:
Gevlon:
"@Arrendis: "you know a shitlord when you see it" is a blanket authorization to name anyone shitlords. "
Only in as much as there's a blanket authorization to name anything 'art' or 'pornography' - both of which are pretty well societally defined as 'I know it when I see it'. Sure, there's nothing stopping anyone from naming anyone else a shitlord, but really, there's also not stopping anyone else from mocking you for it, and peer pressure remains as it always has, even within Goons.
For example: Grath is not someone that most Goons would call a shitlord. He's still a pubbie.
Now, on to this post.
"Sov-related gameplay can be summarized as "pressing F1 under 10% TiDi" and sometimes "shooting multi-million HP structures in subcaps", with the bonus of "retards trolling channels". No one plays this for fun. This is a grind, a means to an end. But what is the end? Where is the fun?"
I have fun in sov-war. I enjoy the living hell out of it, man. Maybe I'm a masochist, but the fact of the matter is that when my old corp left FA after the Fountain war last year in order to go play 'elite pvp' in Great Wildlands, my response was 'screw that shit, you know I'm staying here.' You don't log over 120 different fleet actions in a month (Me, this January - and that's down from during Fountain, because I had other things I needed to do.) because you're not having fun.
Am I an F1 monkey? Nope. I run logistics. And while I have fun in fleet actions, you know where I have even more fun? 10% tidi. B-R was long, it was stressful, it was arduous... and it was fun. Lemme give you a list of my absolute favorite days in EVE, days I loved as they were happening: (ascending order)
Asakai - I ran the logi in Vily's alphafleet.
6VDT - Ran the logi for Vily's baltecfleet.
G15Z - Ran logi in Vily's Domifleet (Really, Vily always seems to get me good days...)
HED-GP - Ran logi for Reagalan - yeah, we lost, but I had a blast. The lag was soul-crushing, and it was a good day to be me.
B-R5RB - Ran logi for Laz's domifleet after about the second hour or so.
Seeing a pattern here? I play Sov War for fun. It is where I find my greatest sense of purpose and fulfillment in this game- kills are nothing. Anyone can be an F1 monkey. Even more, small gang PVP is bullshit - the vast majority of small gang PVP is ganking people who didn't want to PVP in the first place, and really, forcing my pvp cock down their throat isn't my idea of fun. I don't play because I enjoy being a virtual rapist.
ISK is bullshit, too - anyone willing to do a little ratting or PI or market trading can be rich beyond the dreams of avarice - hell, I recruited a friend into Eve in December, and he's plexing 3 accounts already.
Easy shit... easy shit is boring. Doing something hard, though... running logi in fights against multiple fleets at once, in 10% tidi... now that's fun. So when you say 'nobody plays [sov-related gameplay] for fun', I offer my own experience as a direct rebuttal. Someone does, at the very least.
You say friendly groups can't be larger than 150-200 people, which is in keeping w/the proposed range of Dunbar's Number - but even that research suggests that that's the number of consistently maintained relationships, not intermittent ones. And beyond that, the very existence of tribal and national structures shows that common ties and networks of relationships of a far more fleeting and superficial nature can extend into millions of people. Socializing doesn't have to be deep and meaningful, you know. It just has to scratch that 'human contact' itch.
Part 2:
Next, you say 'the PVPers' - and by that, you seem to mean the small-gang PvPers belong to an elite minority. I say they most certainly believe they do. But then, they also belong to a group that has a singular level of non-effect on the greater course of history in New Eden. In the long run, Industrialists matter more than those self-important clowns - at least they make things that get used to drive the larger story of the game. So if they're largely an irrelevant bunch of impotent wastrels, I question how very 'elite' they can really be. What I don't question - indeed, what I heartily encourage, with everything I have - is that they are playing the game in a way that they enjoy, a way that means they're having fun. And that's exactly what they should be doing. Just don't go putting on airs over it.
Then you get to 'Goons are bad at Eve' - it's actually something of a joke, you know. They don't put pressure on themselves to conform to some idiot's idea of excellence - are they doing what they enjoy? Then they're fine. If not, then they should stop, and start doing something else.
You think the source of Goon fun is 'being better than pubbies'? Goons don't even think about pubbies most of the time, unless they're actively hunting them or dodging a gang full of them. Yes, Goons talk shit about pubbies. Goons talk shit about everyone. You know who Goons talk the absolute most shit about? One another.
Goon antipathy toward pubbies isn't superiority. It's not 'we are better because we are us'. It's 'we are us, and they are not, and so who cares if they're better, they are not us and so fuck them.'
Please, Gevlon, I'm begging you: stop the armchair psychoanalysis. It's about as correct as your statement telling me that I don't enjoy sov war. Sov war is why I play.
I'm sorry, you simply don't seem to understand people who don't want the same things you do. At all.
@Maxim: Goons own little Sov. They install renters and pets on the captured sov, so I doubt if Goonie#1234 feels good about the Sov.
@Arrendis: Grath was just called many things very close to "shitlord" on the Goon propaganda site by the famous Goon propagandist James315
OK, I get it. Sov war is fun. And I also ran logi in 6VDT. But then why do Goons feel need to come highsec and massacre "pubbie shitlords" (note: I have no data on TNT Burn Jita participation). I haven't seen PL or SOLAR doing highsec ganking, and definitely didn't see them calling everyone shitlords.
"ISK is bullshit" is factually not true. The 3 PLEX your buddy is getting for his accounts are coming from someone who failed to make ISK and had 1.8B hole to fill using real money.
We agree on that small gang PvP-ers WERE irrelevant, and their elite status WAS imaginary. What we don't agree is the future. I'm just giving small gang PvP-ers a way to be both relevant and put their "elite" status to the test: Join the Lemming project and kick out the largest sov holder coalition from highsec where they hold structures.
"they are not us so fuck them" IS superiority. Otherwise they'd say "they are not us, so let's make them join".
Finally: I admit I don't understand you. But you are NOT A GOON. You are TNT. Your point is "what you do in highsec doesn't bother me at all, so it won't defeat us". Completely true. It won't defeat TNT. It won't defeat SMA. It won't defeat RAZOR.
But it will defeat GSF.
PS: remember TEST! If your leaders would do something that The Mittani don't approve, you would become a "pubbie shitlord" overnight!
If you "make a goon afraid of coming to highsec" or whatever it is you think you do, then as you very well know, alts are a thing. Goons and highsec wars is not a new thing, so they have always been "afraid of coming to highsec".
Psychoanalysis usually involves the ability to understand why other people do things, and as someone with a stated disinterest (allegedly) in what others do, and their motives, you probably should leave the armchair Freud to others.
Interestingly, the goons who do actually live in highsec (miniluv etc) you do not seem overly interested in destroying.
Your view of Sov-related gameplay is interesting, and I shall be sure to pass on to those I know in null that they have, in fact been doing it wrong for the last X years.
While we are on psycho-analysis, where is your objectivist side? Did it get distracted by the anger you somehow feel towards those who play for reasons you cannot fathom? (Much like many cannot fathom spending 8 hours a day moving skillbooks and implants between hubs)
You know it will be successful, as Marmites are behind it. If they can do 1,5 trillion damage in mainly high sec, with only 300 players, what do you think they can with 2000 extra Lemmings :). Give it 10-12 months. The same time that was needed to get Marmites in high damage mode.
Sucks to be a Goon in 2014 :) !
@Gevlon: No, The Mittani owns half nullsec. Goonie#1243 only owns a bombless bomber.
Apply the logic you applied to the Goons to The Lemmings. Lemming #124 isn't scaring the Goons out of hi sec. Only General Lemming is. Why should someone join the Lemmings just to become Lemming #125?
BTW, it is rather strange that you keep mixing up racism and tribalism despite people pointing it out to you. I know you want to continue to use it for its shock and smear value, but it makes you look stupid to those who actually understand the difference.
So the goal is demoralizing goons by taking away high sec POCOs and by making all of high sec significantly more dangerous to any of their pilots?
POCOs are an easy measurement- either you own them or you don't.
A more dangerous high-sec would be easy to measure, BUT you need to gather the average ISK dmg done to goons in high-sec before you got involved, and then set a metric/goal to meet "significantly more dangerous".
Example (made up numbers)- Goons average 100B lost per month in High-sec before this project. If it ramps to 1T/m, that will be my significant marker.
Demoralization might be hardest to measure. You could take membership numbers of goons (and goon alt corps?) to see if growth slows/reduces, but you'll need a way to decipher their average growth trends/recruitment/ migration from other corps. Best to lay down the measurements now to both keep you accountable AND to have clear measurements by which to silence your naysayers.
Let's try again.
To make hs truly dangerous to goons, you would need several thousand players doing it at the same time. But this isn't an isk making activity. Any time spent doing that is time spent not trading, hauling, mining etc. At any given moment, the great majority of hs players will be doing that, not gate or hub camping the goons! They can't wardecs with their miner corp, they are going to get ganked.
And as long as that is the case, the goons will have someone to feel superior to.
LR
@Gevlon
"But it will defeat GSF."
You're implying that by shooting a few goons on the Jita 4-4 undock that this will destroy GSF? You've started a high sec war with a null sec alliance.
The only way that lemmings and marmite can be relevant or any form of threat to goons is to carve out your own null sec sov and start fighting goons where it counts, otherwise you're just a 5 year old playing tag with his parents.
Goonswarm has been under constant wardecs since ever. Privateers, The 0rphanage, Marmite: whatever the FOTM highsec wardec alliance, all have had OHGOD/LODRA/CONDI/whatever permadecced. Wardecs are just a fact of life for large alliances, and they deal with them by advising their members not to enter highsec with characters in the alliance.
However, the wardeccers' lofty goals of disrupting the Big Bad's logistics capabilities never come to fruition. The jump freighters aren't in the wardecced alliance and neither are the alliance members' highsec alts.
The fact is that highsec wardecs have never been contributed towards the breaking of an alliance, not then and not now.
@JimL: Lemming#125 has a bunch of kills he gained himself and proud of. You know in this game many people go great length to get kills. My assumption is people consider kills fun.
@LR: Highsec has about 300K players. If just 1% does it, that's still 10x of the size of Marmite.
In the historical sense, "tribe," "race" and "clan" can be used interchangeably. So it is indeed racism.
Would it stop goons feeling superior to 90 per cent of high sec players if they had to fear 10 per cent of them?
"Being with friends" works on small corps where people actually know each other.
Goonswarm has many small corps and other organizations. People know each other. Without having been a Goon or even talked to any of them, I can guarantee you that guys are getting their social fix when out in Goonswarm ops both large and small.
But the social mind isn't capable of processing more than 150-200 "friends", which puts a limit to friendly groups.
Dunbar's number puts a limit on "company" sizes; that is, military units where each man knows every other man; but so what? If we want larger units, we arrange that the leaders know each other. The line members do not have to. Thus: battalions, regiments, divisions, corps, armies, even army groups.
Goonswarm's leaders know each other.
Or to use another argument: if Dunbar's number really limited the human experience of camaraderie in warfare, then you cannot explain nationalism. And yet nationalism is the most important cause of all modern wars. The soldier fights to maintain the respect of his comrades in his small unit. But in the big picture, that they all fight is because they are motivated by ideology. When the ideology is kicked away, the mass army won't fight.
How many of those hs toons are isk making alts of PvP ers?
Sure I have an alt that spends time doing carebear stuff... But my "eve identity" isn't that, it's RvB. So all of us who do this, we don't really feel motivated to get involved... Yet we provide the illusion of multitudes of care bears. And the real carebear won't fight because of who they are. So your amount of recruits isn't that great.
Other thing: are you at war with the CFC or the goons? It's not really clear in your writing and answers to Arrendis. The culture is specific to the goons, but strategically they are unified, so...
LR
@LR: my targets are the Goons. Of course I have to hit their allies too, but if they quit being Goon pets, I won't go after them!
"when the last Goon says "EVE isn't fun anymore""
i'm fairly sure, that at that time, indeed eve won't be fun anymore.
plus, there's another problem with the 1, or 10, or whatever percent of highseccers (that are not alts of nullppl) - most of them do not know who/what/why goons are.
after 2 month living among their cattle, i also can assure you that most of their renters don't know neither.
anyway, would you mind giving a definition of what a "goon" is?
hmmm just curious here, someone said "goons don't do highsec", I have a question regarding that: so the following items are not done in highsec: Hulkagedon, burn jita, and of course the interdictions?
@Daniel: Goons went a long way to make sure they are known in highsec.
The definition: the true blood Goon is the member of Goonwaffe, coming from SA, believing in his superiority over "pubbies" (otherwise the term wouldn't have meaning).
Inner pet: member of other GSF corps. While he isn't a true blood Goon, he volunteerly joined them and helping them in their quest against "pubbies".
@Daniel: Goons went a long way to make sure they are known in highsec.
The definition: the true blood Goon is the member of Goonwaffe, coming from SA, believing in his superiority over "pubbies" (otherwise the term wouldn't have meaning).
Inner pet: member of other GSF corps. While he isn't a true blood Goon, he volunteerly joined them and helping them in their quest against "pubbies".
@maxim wrote: "This is a game about space-importance."
Um... no.
After a year of playing and a year before that of following Gevlon's blog and several years before that of reading about Eve, I still have no idea what it is "about". Which is lots of bloggers are talking about whether something is a game, a toy, or a sandbox.
I'm willing to agree for the sake of this discussion that The Mitanni is playing the "space importance" game. As well as mynnna and other Goon leaders. But is that what most goonies are playing? I don't think so.
Likewise, Gevlon is very upfront that he is playing an "educate M&S" game and not a "space importance" game.
I do believe that lemmings can have an impact in goons, and because of it in all new eden. BUT there are a few things that have to be acomplished fot this to happen, and one of them is actually taking the POCOS of goons hands. That is a much bigger morale hit than the killing of random goons in HS. To be able to acomplish this RvB has to drop the war. The only way to do this is hitting them were it really hurts them and that is not their ships, but their pods. They MUST BE PODDED every time as they usually fly very expensive pods, that's the morale killer for them and the reason they have the no podding rule, it's no-fun for them, BUT when they're done miniluv will step in.
When goons have to form fleet to defend their pocos and get slaughtered by pubbie shitlords, that's when they will take a huge morale hit.
Are you still doing that Gevlon? Are you at war with the goons for educational purposes?
LR
"believing in his superiority over "pubbies""
isn't this something imminent to _all_ organised gamers? may it be in wot, cs, wow or whatsoever.
sorry, but the superiority.over.public.players-feeling isn't something goon specific.
do you understand the cultural nature of sa?
i do not really, and not care that much, though i recently learned (thx wikipedia) that the "all your base" thing is from them.
on a sidenote, it is interesting to see how fast you aquired knowledge about eve's history in general, and eve.goon-history in specific.
it feels like this time you really did your homework first.
Can't Goons get over the possible rise of Lemmings by ranking them somewhere between PL and other high sec dwellers and then disrespecting the rest of high sec pubbies as usual?
@Daniel: the superiority of organized gaming teams over "trade chat trash" is obvious and objectively true. The WoW feature LFR (Looking for raid, which gives you random teammates) is called "Looking for Retards" among players.
However Goons don't derive their superiority from better scores. Membership is not function of performance. A 1 day old Goon who can't find the undock button is a full value Goon, while Marmites or PL are "pubbies".
@Satori: yes, we are focusing pods.
@LR: yes. The reason I'm in war with Goons (and not NC. or PL or SOLAR) is that they openly deny meritocracy and claim that a group based on social ties can be more successful than meritocratic groups.
Goonwaffe is a textbook case of "it doesn't matter what you know but who you know". By defeating it (or force it to reform), I prove everyone that success depends on personal performance, effort and TECHNICAL knowledge (be it ISK making or PvP skills).
Love the Post and this Stereotype has been true for years. Null people think they are superior at everything, but time and again I see them come to highsec and go to newbie systems for their "I'm superior in PvP" moment. They'll flaunt stories of where they've been and what they've done to try to impress Eve newcomers. But when they are challenge by a character older than 6 months, they suddenly dock up and don't want to fight. Then comes their Favorite line, "Come fight me in Null Sec." Because clearly he doesn't his blob to back him up here in highsec.
Fun Fact: a particular pilot at war with both Goons & RvB fell asleep while on a pipeline gate in Hisec, in a Frig. He woke 4 hours later still orbiting the gate. He was only 3 or 4 systems away from RvB home systems. Just goes to show... Who's afraid of who.
@Gevlon
Goonswarm is highly meritocratic. Directorate positions are given to those who prove that they are capable of fulfilling a certain role, not to whoever is the most popular.
Anonymous:
"
After a year of playing and a year before that of following Gevlon's blog and several years before that of reading about Eve, I still have no idea what it is "about"."
EVE is about whatever you make it about. That's the wonderful part of this terrible, terrible game.
Gevlon:
"@Arrendis: Grath was just called many things very close to "shitlord" on the Goon propaganda site by the famous Goon propagandist James315"
James315 writes up a lovely narrative, but he's definitely a 'believe this at your own risk' type. I'd call him a moron, but he's not getting things wrong because he doesn't know any better. He's getting things wrong on purpose. He's a snake-oil salesman, and his product is 'thinking you have a clue'. Nobody with any direct experience with the events he spins yarns about should believe him. Which goes back to my point: Yes, James can call Grath a shitlord if he wants. He'll be laughed at, just like he would if someone called Mittens a shitlord (which people in goons have done, and been laughed at over).
It's a free internet, as it were, you can say whatever you want about whoever you want. Doesn't make it true, and it doesn't mean people will buy it.
""ISK is bullshit" is factually not true. The 3 PLEX your buddy is getting for his accounts are coming from someone who failed to make ISK and had 1.8B hole to fill using real money."
Gevlon, I have bad news for you: RL money is bullshit.
Money in the real world is an ambiguous quantification of an abstraction: the value of work. That value is demonstrably skewed toward being self-referential. In the real world, being able to feed yourself is infinitely more valuable than being able to drive a Ferrari - but the Ferrari's relative scarcity make it worth thousands upon thousands of hours of 'work' for most of the people on the planet. There are entire villages in the developing world whose efforts in a decade - efforts at surviving, at improving their lot in life, in being decent members of their community and the community of their children - will not add up to the cost of a single Italian sports car. It has nothing to do with how hard they work, nothing to do with any failure to seize opportunities, and everything to do with the simple luck of the genetic lottery - this guy was born the son of a rich man in Hamburg, those hundred were born the children of a dirt-poor village in the back-wilds of Cambodia, or Nairobi, or the Sudan, or Bangaladesh, or Brazil, or... the list goes on.
A hundred people's entire lives, over ten years, aren't worth a single rich man's toy that'll be replaced in two years.
And let's face it, that's bullshit.
But this isn't a blog about socio-economic injustices, and as a first-worlder in one of the great capitals of excess (NY), I've no real ground to rail and rant against it, so I beg your forgiveness for my diversion to make a point, and let's get back to internet space ships in the part 2 you knew was coming because I'm a wordy bastard who never shuts up...
"What we don't agree is the future. I'm just giving small gang PvP-ers a way to be both relevant and put their "elite" status to the test: Join the Lemming project and kick out the largest sov holder coalition from highsec where they hold structures."
But see, they can't test their 'elite' status that way, and I'll tell you why: What's the end-game?
Let's say you get enough guys to show consistently enough to be a credible threat to GSF's income. What happens? Your small PvP gangs show up to shoot a POCO that's coming out of RF...
... and there are three fleets of 250 ships waiting for them. Worse, they've had to wardec GSF, and they've likely followed Marmite's foolish* precedent of wardeccing other CFC alliances, so there's no reason the CFC isn't organizing things intelligently and having folks who aren't wardec'd in support roles like logi, while the active war targets are weapons-free in massive gate-camps.
The 'elite pvp' small gang jumps in, and dies. How do they successfully fight back? Well, they need to organize into larger groups. Ok, so now they're larger. And their FC needs to have a reasonable expectation, going in, of what his fleet's capabilities are - range, damage type, mobility, etc.
Congratulations, they're fighting in doctrines now. They have proven their 'elite' status by abandoning the very things that they claim make them 'elite'. And they know that's the end-game of that set of events.
Fuck me, do I need a THIRD?
* - From Marmite's perspective, this is not foolish. They're no concerned with 'defeating GSF', they want kills. Wardeccing other CFC alliances gets them the ability to shoot more people. From the perspective of anyone wanting to actually defeat CONDI, this is a MASSIVE MISTAKE.
Why? Because you're not isolating them. If all of your efforts were just aimed at CONDI, if none of their allies were wardec'd, then none of them could shoot you to defend Goons. At most, they could provide logis to the fight - which your guys could shoot the moment they provided reps, and got a suspect timer. Instead, right now, TNT is weapons-free on Marmite if we're on-field, where we could have been rendered somewhat impotent in this war.
Anyone... anyone attempting to prosecute a meaningful offensive with objectives they actually want to achieve, would tell you this, Gevlon: ISOLATE THEM. Separate them from their allies. That's their strength. That's what makes the CFC a steamroller. Marmite is doing exactly the opposite, so they can pad their killboards.
" "they are not us so fuck them" IS superiority. Otherwise they'd say "they are not us, so let's make them join". "
No, it's insularity, and it's (gasp!) enjoying PVP. People and corps find their way into CONDI all the time, usually after demonstrating that they're a baller bunch of folks who aren't idiots - often enough by doing it on the other side of a war. Look at ENL-I. What you're describing, 'let's make them join' is forced conversion, it's religious zealotry and spreading the faith by fire and sword.
Why the hell would the Goons want that? Why would they want to engage in that? If everyone could be forced to join, who would they shoot? I like shooting people in space-ships - why would I want fewer people to shoot, as a general rule?
Yes, insularity wraps itself in the trappings of superiority fairly often, 'Oh, those guys are fucking retards' etc, but that's basic human nature, and it's not because of the insularity. It's because of the opposition. You, yourself, have engaged in the same overt stance of being 'superior' to the line goon or the line CFC member. You choose to use denigrating terminology like 'pets', or choose to insist that the goons are obviously terrible people despite having never interacted with the vast majority of them, and having no clear understanding of the inner workings of the CFC. You justify it by saying you oppose their actions, or their attitudes, but you engage in it just the same.
Do you truly feel yourself to be a better human being than those guys? Do you truly feel yourself to be a more valuable, more fit example of the species than them?
Because I gotta tell you, they don't.
It's a game. Trash talk and dumping on the other guy is part of the tribalism of the game. So is setting aside all the in-game bullshit and laughing together over a beer in a pub when you meet the 'enemy' IRL.
Because once you get to RL, the 'tribe' is EVE players. The 'tribe' is gamers. And the 'pubbies', to use the Goon analogy, is all those arrogant fucking straights** in the world who choose to look down on us because we choose to spend our time playing games.
This course of action you're engaging in won't defeat GSF. And it won't separate them from the rest of the CFC. As I've said: You don't understand how the machinery of the CFC works. I can tell you right now that if Wibla were to do something Mittens didn't like, Mittens and Wibla would talk it out. That might not necessarily be true of all of the CFC alliances to the same degree, but it's definitely true that Mittens doesn't just cut you loose after a single fuckup - SMA is a perfect example of that. SMA did do things that Mittens - and the rest of the CFC, from the line pilot to the Illuminati - didn't like, and after repeated discussions, got pointedly told to clean up their act. At the time, I was in LAWN, in the leadership hierarchy, and we were damned tired of cleaning up their messes.
As a result? Yes, there's a running joke of 'All SpaceMonkeys are spais' that cropped up in Curse, but some of the finest guys in the CFC's fleet logi ranks are SMA pilots, and I'd trust those guys to keep my ass alive without hesitation. There's maybe a handful of people I'll anchor on without getting twitchy and 'dammit, that's my job', in all of the CFC, and at least one of them is SMA.
** - 'straights' meaning 'people conforming to the normal, straight-laced norms that society assumes, not sexual orientation. Example: Ghostbusters II - "Boys... boys? You're scaring the straights."
"while Marmites or PL are "pubbies"."
quote please. because in no way can i imagine that anyone will call pl.players pubbie.
being a public player is not about being good or bad at the game - it is about being in a (competing) corp/guild/clan/platoon/etcpp, or not.
"(or force it to reform)"
they, and that is the most funny thing, already did.
the conversion towards renting out their space.
as far as i understood goon directors were facing some serious ingame drama - pure goons not too amused and understanding about it.
todays narative goes a bit more like:
mittens and the gang infiltrated what once were true goons and (ab)use them for their spacepolitics.
it's a little bit like a certain former german chancellor became member of a certain former german party.
as soon as that party and their armed wing (funnily known as SA) had helped him to establish power, the armed wing (consisting of the equivalent to the true believing goon) got, hmm, let's just say, nicely asked to step down.
another similarity would be the certain.chancellor-stalin-treaty.
the common member of that party was so totally anti-communist, that the anouncement of that treaty destroyed his very believes - newspapers tell us about quite some riots happening in the days after.
i for one feel sorry for the one that you call a pure.blood.goon.
if they really came to destroy other players game - i must state, as a current pblrd.renter, i feel my gameply to be quite enabled.
if my rentlord is reading this.
thx alot :-)
looking forward to your post about mittanis latest piece, and how it will affect your statistics about pure.goons not being active pvp.ers
@Arrendis: There are multiple reasons for blanket-wardeccing CFC.
- one is simply feed my pilots with kills. SMA, FCON, FA, TNT don't form up in highsec, so it's not really PvP, just "lone lost noob vs gatecamp". The fight is against RvB and we do have losses in that fight. The ISK ratio is better than 50% but not much. "Win one, lose one" isn't a good deal for an average PvP-er. So I give them a bunch of easy kills.
- to inflate numbers. "We killed 140B worth of CFC" sounds better than "we killed 30B worth of Goons"
- to weaken the whole CFC. After all, they do actively defend Goons everywhere.
- to put pressure on Goons. "Why are we losing ISK"? Because Goons don't want to accept Gevlon's terms which are actually "don't treat us pets" and "don't be a douche to everyone".
The definition: the true blood Goon is the member of Goonwaffe, coming from SA, believing in his superiority over "pubbies" (otherwise the term wouldn't have meaning).
I love how you think "Goonwaffe = SA", when the truth is many corps in Goonfleet = SA...
There are so many goons that for organisational purposes they run over multiple corps (logi corps, finance corps, alt corps, indy corps etc etc)
to put pressure on Goons. "Why are we losing ISK"? Because Goons don't want to accept Gevlon's terms which are actually "don't treat us pets" and "don't be a douche to everyone".
You do realize that in order to put pressure on goons from an isk perspective you would need to cause tens of trillions of isk worth of damage to them? It is an alliance which literally has individual trillionaires. Plural. As in there is more than one trillionaire in the CFC. And they are a tight knit social group who understand how to make money hand over fist. If you cause a few hundred billion isk damage, the alliance will just make the money up in days. If you cause a single trillion isk damage then these individuals who love their alliance and internet spaceship importance will just prop up the alliance with their own cash.
No, you'd have to cause tens of trillions of isk damage to actually cause economic damage to the CFC.
daniel said...
"while Marmites or PL are "pubbies"."
quote please. because in no way can i imagine that anyone will call pl.players pubbie.
being a public player is not about being good or bad at the game - it is about being in a (competing) corp/guild/clan/platoon/etcpp, or not.
Ok, dude? Either you are a Goon - ie: you are an individual who came to EVE from Something Awful, with an active posting history... or you're a pubbie.
"Pubbie" is a term the Goons themselves coined to mean "Not A Goon". Grath is a pubbie. I'm a pubbie. It has nothing to do with being in a 'public' organization, it has to do with 'you are not a Goon'. To some Goons, members of CONDI who are not in very specific corporations, or who do not have an active SA posting history, are pubbies.
Is it an insult? Only if you make it one. Otherwise, it's a descriptor, like 'foreigner'.
@Gevlon.
No. I said apply the same logic. You are attributing everything of Goon #1243 to The Mittani but everything of Lemming #125 to himself. If Goon #1243 doesn't hold SOV (the Mittani does) then Lemming #125 doesn't have a wardec allowing him to get PvP kills (General Lemming does).
Your red herring answer to my challenge was to imply that being in the Lemmings gives Lemming #125 something of value. Isn't that also true of of Goon #1243 being in the Goons?
@Anonymous
The fact that on occasion in historical conflicts there has been an overlap between "race", "tribe", or "clan" does not mean they are always interchangeable. There are very clear and relevant distinctions. That someone wants to ignore these relevant distinctions in order to smear his opponents doesn't make those distinctions go away. It just means that person is willing to to be ignorant in order to get in an insult.
The targeting of Goons enemies ("they are not us") has absolutely nothing to do with race, it has to do with tribe. Stating that it is racism is ignorance of the definition of the word racism. Continuing to do so after it is pointed out to you is just willful ignorance.
Willful ignorance is nothing to be proud of. It is stupid.
Okay, so you identified that the reason goons play eve is the feeling of being better than others. Your terms are that they stop doing so... In other words, quit playing eve.
doesn't this seem unreasonable?
LR
Oh, and Daniel:
"if they really came to destroy other players game - i must state, as a current pblrd.renter, i feel my gameply to be quite enabled.
if my rentlord is reading this.
thx alot :-)"
I'll pass that on to Clewara, I'm sure she'll be glad to know you feel enabled. :)
@Anonymous: the total GSF membership surely has tens of trillions. But it's not equally distributed. The fact that Mynnna alone has trillions doesn't help Goonie#5424 who just lost his last ship to us and the other Goons laugh on him for coming to highsec.
@LR: yes, the most obnoxious Goons will leave the game if we win. But most will just adapt, just like they did, when renting was introduced in CFC.
@JimL: most of Lemming action is (very) small gang. So he can claim his kills his own. Most Goon action is very large fleet. He can't claim the captured station his own.
@Anonymous: the total GSF membership surely has tens of trillions. But it's not equally distributed. The fact that Mynnna alone has trillions doesn't help Goonie#5424 who just lost his last ship to us and the other Goons laugh on him for coming to highsec.
@LR: yes, the most obnoxious Goons will leave the game if we win. But most will just adapt, just like they did, when renting was introduced in CFC.
@JimL: most of Lemming action is (very) small gang. So he can claim his kills his own. Most Goon action is very large fleet. He can't claim the captured station his own.
arrendis:
doh, sorry, my bad.
was under false assumptions, as a friend of mine is playing wot, and they call non-clan.players pubbie as well.
thx for passing the greetings. plz carry on the good work.
If it is something that they can adapt... Then it is not the core reason why they are playing eve! Doesn't this mean that your cultural analysis of the goons is flawed?
LR
A long time ago in the "Grimtooth's Traps" series of books for RPGs there was a comment about what every adventurer had that none could armor and what the traps sought to attack. Ego.
The goon ego is the target that most don't understand as the real target. N3 with PL almost had it broken since deployment numbers were down, battles lost, others in Eve were starting to pile on to attack them. Then in the one thing that mittens does well, he delivered a speech with a decent plan and turned the tide. If Eve is to be free of Goon damage and make no mistake they have damaged the game deeply in many ways that possibly endanger it's very life, then the Goon will must be broken. That will take a long, hard battle with a lot of money to back it.
In response to the comment about Goons not caring about highsec, look to how they cried when they got stuck in a perma-war with anyone able to join in free in highsec. They depend as much on highsec as anyone else.
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