The personal reason of leading a crusade against the Goons is that I can never be one of them. I'm an "n-word" in their eyes, because I'm not on their out-of-game forum. I can only be their minion, their slave. This obviously bothers me as - unlike with PL and N3 - I'm not into this "elite PvP" nonsense. My playstyle fits CFC much better, but I am not allowed to enter, regardless of what I do.
So far so good, you've heard it too many times. But Goons aren't treating their "slaves" so bad, otherwise they wouldn't have so many and Lucas wouldn't protect them like his life depends on it. Sure, Goonwaffe Goons get preferential treatment, they can stay without any stratop participation, they can stay while they do nothing but ratting all day. But this is an academic argument as I don't want to slack. When I was in TEST, I had near perfect statop attendance. I would probably be in the top 1% of those paplink listings, maybe protesting against bombless bomber fleets by showing up in a Phoenix. Sure, I'd be annoyed that some slackers are being carried, but there is big difference between being annoyed with them and spending 160B+ on defeating them. The truth is that I didn't know why I resented "Goon minions" and just rationalized it with social justice bullshit.
However the recent stupid drama about The Red Barons made it clear why. Alliances, and recently coalitions are having identities. They do stuff. They get mentioned in news. Yet you can't join an alliance, you can only join a corp and corps can join an alliance. Why do corps exist? Because players are social and want to be in a social group smaller than the Dunbar number. While they fight in an 1000-men fleet, they still prefer to be in small, social corps "with friends" in the meantime. But being in a corp is more than a hoop I'd have to jump in order to be in an alliance: it's a serious risk of drama.
When Doc Know lost his cool over someone being mean on the internet, all members of his corps were removed from The Marmite Collective. They lost access to the wars they joined for. They didn't do anything to lose access. Of course in a PvP game, you can lose against your will. If the enemy invades your land, you can fight back. If you fail, you failed, so deserve to lose. But in case of drama, the line members can't do anything.
Except if you are in the central corp. Since it is the anchor point, in case of stupid drama, always the other one loses the alliance/coalition membership. If an SMA leader loses his cool with The Mittani, SMA will ragequit/gets ragekicked from CFC. If the Wildly Inappropriate CEO melts down and gets yelling with The Mittani, WI will leave. If The Mittani loses his cool with the FCON management... yeah, FCON leaves. Goonwaffe can only lose Goonswarm and CFC membership if CFC failcascades. As long as there is CFC, Goonwaffe will be in it. The bottom line is that a Goonwaffe member can only be kicked if he personally does something bad. If you are outside of Goonwaffe, you can lose your CFC membership without anyone even blaming you. It's enough if your corp ceo or alliance leader does what social people often do: gets mad over words.
The above isn't an academic issue. The HBC failcascade, the TEST failcascade, the Falcon-drama, the Halloween Russian failcascade are all examples of people losing their land without even a fight, just because someone above their rank acted like a kid. Of course you can never be safe from drama as long as there are social people around. Even the central corp of HBC lost nullsec. But being in the central corp gives you a safety net: as long as there is a surviving fragment, you'll be in it.
PS: tomorrow comes a shocking business post. No Goons will be mentioned! No speculation used, everything is tried out!
PS2: terminal case moron here.
So far so good, you've heard it too many times. But Goons aren't treating their "slaves" so bad, otherwise they wouldn't have so many and Lucas wouldn't protect them like his life depends on it. Sure, Goonwaffe Goons get preferential treatment, they can stay without any stratop participation, they can stay while they do nothing but ratting all day. But this is an academic argument as I don't want to slack. When I was in TEST, I had near perfect statop attendance. I would probably be in the top 1% of those paplink listings, maybe protesting against bombless bomber fleets by showing up in a Phoenix. Sure, I'd be annoyed that some slackers are being carried, but there is big difference between being annoyed with them and spending 160B+ on defeating them. The truth is that I didn't know why I resented "Goon minions" and just rationalized it with social justice bullshit.
However the recent stupid drama about The Red Barons made it clear why. Alliances, and recently coalitions are having identities. They do stuff. They get mentioned in news. Yet you can't join an alliance, you can only join a corp and corps can join an alliance. Why do corps exist? Because players are social and want to be in a social group smaller than the Dunbar number. While they fight in an 1000-men fleet, they still prefer to be in small, social corps "with friends" in the meantime. But being in a corp is more than a hoop I'd have to jump in order to be in an alliance: it's a serious risk of drama.
When Doc Know lost his cool over someone being mean on the internet, all members of his corps were removed from The Marmite Collective. They lost access to the wars they joined for. They didn't do anything to lose access. Of course in a PvP game, you can lose against your will. If the enemy invades your land, you can fight back. If you fail, you failed, so deserve to lose. But in case of drama, the line members can't do anything.
Except if you are in the central corp. Since it is the anchor point, in case of stupid drama, always the other one loses the alliance/coalition membership. If an SMA leader loses his cool with The Mittani, SMA will ragequit/gets ragekicked from CFC. If the Wildly Inappropriate CEO melts down and gets yelling with The Mittani, WI will leave. If The Mittani loses his cool with the FCON management... yeah, FCON leaves. Goonwaffe can only lose Goonswarm and CFC membership if CFC failcascades. As long as there is CFC, Goonwaffe will be in it. The bottom line is that a Goonwaffe member can only be kicked if he personally does something bad. If you are outside of Goonwaffe, you can lose your CFC membership without anyone even blaming you. It's enough if your corp ceo or alliance leader does what social people often do: gets mad over words.
The above isn't an academic issue. The HBC failcascade, the TEST failcascade, the Falcon-drama, the Halloween Russian failcascade are all examples of people losing their land without even a fight, just because someone above their rank acted like a kid. Of course you can never be safe from drama as long as there are social people around. Even the central corp of HBC lost nullsec. But being in the central corp gives you a safety net: as long as there is a surviving fragment, you'll be in it.
PS: tomorrow comes a shocking business post. No Goons will be mentioned! No speculation used, everything is tried out!
PS2: terminal case moron here.
18 comments:
There is some truth in this but also some misconceptions.
Yes, you can absolutely be removed from your coalition of choice on a political whim that deletes your entire corporation from the roster - HOWEVER, when this happens (and it has happened...) you have a choice...
You can either declare your allegiance to your corp mates and fade into irrelevancy along with your Bad CEO (tm), or you can leave your corporation and join another CFC aligned group. This happens often, and there are even orphanage corps which are set up from time to time to facilitate such a merger.
Often booting a corporation is a way of booting a leader from the inner circle - the alliance itself does not wish to see the loss of "warm bodies" especially if they are strong participators as you declare you would be.
It all comes down to where your loyalties lie - to the "cause" of your alliance/coalition, or to the organisational body that exists to collect and manage individuals i.e. the corporation.
It's been said here before but I'll say it again - strong functioning alliances and coalitions operate with "loyalty to the state", and not to the individual corps which make up the group. Everyone is treated more-or-less equally, command and responsibility is shared.
they can stay without any stratop participation, they can stay while they do nothing but ratting all day
This is wrong by the way. Why do you keep stating this when it's not correct? Goonwaffe members have participation stats, same as anyone else, and if they don't meet requirements they get booted.
And while there is sort of a safety net around the "main corps", It's not something you see. When a corp does break down for whatever reason, there's enough structure and diplomacy in place that anyone who wants to stay can stay, even if the CEO explodes into rage. What happened with the barons will never happen in the CFC.
In 2013 Goonwaffe members had 1/3 as much kills as other GSF members. So the standards aren't that high.
Hirr begs to differ about this "stay in CFC" statement.
if your playstyle fits CFC, than why are you fighting CFC?
The problem you further describe is also true for every center circle. gkick happen in every game. nothing a gmember can do about it.
Also. you strive to be "elitist" in what ever you do. So whatever group you think you might fit in will have bars to low for your taste.
"In 2013 Goonwaffe members had 1/3 as much kills as other GSF members. So the standards aren't that high."
Goonwaffe is also filled with alts that have non combat functions such as the logistics department where in other alliances they have a special corp that does this so your participation comments are based on incorrect data.
It appears you developed this unhealthy obsession with I don't know what alliance who does something somewhere. Why do you care if they won't allow you in their stupid forum? Just join another alliance, go in NPC null or stay in hi sec and do your thing.
Marmites know that The Red Barons had nothing to do with Doc Know's drama lama actions. And thats why they all have joined the main corp EZPOP. So its back to normal business, just without 1 drama lama.
Tora
In 2013 Goonwaffe members had 1/3 as much kills as other GSF members. So the standards aren't that high.
Participation isn't the same as kills. There's no kill requirement for any of the CFC corps. Goon participation stats are actually surprisingly high. Even more so when you consider that they operate as a main corp and an alt corp in one, while other alliances operate the as separate entities.
Why do you care if they won't allow you in their stupid forum?
Anon, that's the silly thing. He is allowed on the forum. SA forums are a paid membership forum, and the corp he considers to be the "true goons" all share that common interest. He's upset that they don't allow him to not share their interests but still join their group, even though he'd then complain that all they do is talk about stupid things, post porn links and troll.
What he doesn't realise is that what he actually wants is to join another goon corp, which are identical expect have different common interests. He'd probably fit in quite well in a group like ENL-I.
The problem with ENL-I and other such corps are indeed in this post. You might noticed that I put serious investment into things I do. I don't just hang around. So if I'd be there, I'd have good attendance, a titan, a separate carrier and dread pilot and all that stuff.
Then bang, I wake up one day that I'm out because some drama on some Jabber I've never even heard of.
The thing is that I want to be in an alliance without having to be in a corp, but that's only possible in the large, rather anonymous central corp, like Dreddit, Brave, Sniggerdly or Goonwaffe.
I think in general you are right, again it is the specific case that you miss the point.
The example you use "a corp of friends" within an alliance. Is no doubt very valid.
Here is the trick, (everything has tricks, you may not call them tricks but none the less its what they are) is when you find a corp check the alliance, spend time finding out if the alliance fits you almost as well as the corp. Normally a player assumes (for the most part) the identity of the corp and this should also mean that corps assume the identiy of the alliance. When drama happens (been there done that and enjoyed the hell out of it) you have to know where the heat is comming from and what is the correct response.
I know that in some alliances if you just take it you are considered a weak sister, however if you push back and have no problem saying "come at me bro" you can often defuse the situation. Its really similar to dealing with a bully, sure the teacher can stop it for a bit but till you take them on (win or lose) you are still considered weak. Sometimes losing doesn't help either but thats life. The problems as I saw it with red barron was that he just took the abuse and tired to "mediate" it out. This game is played by "jungle rules" he should have found the drama llama and lit them up. Would it have changed the final outcome? I don't know but I do know this he looks like a weak sister for picking up his ball and going home.
Then bang, I wake up one day that I'm out because some drama on some Jabber I've never even heard of.
I don't think ENL-I will be out anytime soon, and if they were you'd just move to another goon corp. Like someone said above, when you are in the CFC, you are in the CFC, not if you corp. Corp tags are almost completely irrelevant.
They certainly wouldn't just pelt out an entire corp because a director had a wobbly.
The thing is that I want to be in an alliance without having to be in a corp, but that's only possible in the large, rather anonymous central corp, like Dreddit, Brave, Sniggerdly or Goonwaffe.
I promise you that being in another goon corp is exactly the same. Even when you get called for an op, it's not by corp or even alliance. You are signed up for SIGs (special interest groups) and your SIG gets called. Sometimes there's corpmates, sometimes there's not and it doesn't matter either way. I go whole weeks without even speaking to my corpmates at times because I'm on ops that they aren't on.
Then bang, I wake up one day that I'm out because some drama on some Jabber I've never even heard of.
This will happen no matter what. It's called life. others will blame God or RNGesus. Accidents and other events happen every day.
Because you do serious invest into something, maybe it's possible to arrange something on alliance level? To cut out the corp-ceo middle man drama risk.
Obviously I have no clue. But your are not the Xth lol-frig idiot either.
rationalized it with social justice bullshit
I must say that I've been waiting for this post for a long time (though I wasn't sure whether the relevant verb would be "realize" or "admit").
Sure the process has yielded some interesting results, but it's hard to keep a straight face when reading about the evil exclusionary ways of a group that will sell anyone a lifetime membership for $10. No, you can't pay for it in in-game currency - but I'd take it over gold ammo any day.
How they recruit doesn't matter. What matters is the preferential treatment. They still have no in-game standards while demanding every other alliance/corp to keep participation. They also attack random people for no reason, even at financial loss.
It is true that these aren't my personal reasons, but they are still evil.
About ENL-I. It's rather a counterargument than an argument. ENL-I left TEST after its defeat and joined the alliance they were fighting against. If someone in ENL-I wasn't happy with that, he couldn't do anything. While he could apply to a surviving TEST or N3 member, he would come with a handicap as "obvious Goon spy".
Hell, it could be even worse. You could put in years and years of work in a character while at any point CCP can pull the plug and there is nothing you can do about it.
Ever.
So why do you still play an MMO not run and hosted by yourself?
CCP is a profit oriented organization, not a bunch of nerds feeling super important.
They still have no in-game standards while demanding every other alliance/corp to keep participation.
You keep saying this but it is objectively untrue. No, waffe pilots don't click paplinks. This is because waffe has other mechanisms for tracking participation.
If you as an individual routinely don't participate you get purged just as everyone else does.
Corps are there cause of two reasons:
1. History
2. Option for delegation
Your article also applies to about 90%, cause percentages are cool, for all alliances as they are centered around 1 founding corp or a couple or a couple of founding members. This is also true for the current other 2(/3?) coalitions where one of the smaller member alliances can lose its "member" status quite easy and are either forced to merge or leave.
Post a Comment