Greedy Goblin

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

The HERO-Provi toys

I read the battle report of BR-N97 and couldn't help being sad about both HERO and Proviblock. Their fight didn't decided the outcome. Hell, not even their diplomacy decided it. PL first shot HERO and repped the IHub, then shot Provi, leading to the destruction of the IHub. NC. helped HERO (formally against PL), but they didn't shoot each other.

This is beyond the "you must kiss our ring or die". This is "you are irrelevant toys we play when bored". PL, NC. and the rest of the "third parties" can't care less who'll win, they just blow up ships at will, enjoying their supremacy over both HERO and Proviblock.

My simple question is, why do these two play along? Why don't they recognize that their current actions don't shape the future of Providence and Catch. The coin that the PL FC tosses to decide who to shoot have more power than them.

What could they do? Refuse to be a toy. Abandon Providence/Catch and their dreams of being independent Sov-holder. There are awful lot of options where they can make difference instead of just being a toy:
  • Kissing a ring, becoming member of N3, PL or CFC blocks. I obviously hope no one picks the CFC, but for HERO and Provi, even that would be better than being a toy.
  • Picking one of the blocks as arch-enemy because of some past or present grievance and move to NPC space near them and hunt ratters.
  • Move to WH space. The new small-ship WHs favor frigswarms.
  • Move to highsec, kick RvB out of the POCO throne.
  • Pick an FW faction and win the war for them.
This is just what I could make up in 5 minutes. I'm sure there are better options and they can find them if they try. But anything is better than being a toy for bored PL/NC./whoever. Of course I have a reason to write that: nullsec is stagnant because HERO and Provi allows the powerblocks to have content without risk. Would they stop being a toy, a real war must start or the powerblocks crumble because their bored pilots unsubscribe.


PS: some of you question my judgment that Goons are evil. So let one of them describe their motivation with his own words:
If you want to do something about these baby-robbers, donate!

PS2: RAZOR (a not too successful minion of the Evil) deploys to lowsec and mentions better Jita access among the reasons.

12 comments:

Provi Miner said...

you miss the point 100% of the way for provi. Provi doesn't fight to win, Provi doesn't fight for content (trust me this kind of fighting is almost anti-provi). Provi fights and will fight till the end because we are provi. Think of Provi as the alamo (we do) we will fight till we are kicked out, then we will punish the victors till they leave and we will reclaim. You should take a moment and learn the history of Provi. PL took a system in Provi. A week later they offered to rent it back. Two weeks later they offered to let the former owners use of the system. Three weeks later they offered free use. 4 weeks later they left. Why? that is the question. Because Provi has value to only two groups those who believe in Provi and new players who want a chance to experience null (player null) without the hassle of joining a corporation.

Oh BTW you missed the next fight were Provi killed hero, killed nc, and killed pl.

BearNClear said...

"PS: some of you question my judgment that Goons are evil."

Not at all, I question what makes MoA any better than the CFC, and so far you haven't answered that.

Arrendis said...

Sure, they could do any of those things - but they want to hold sov. Whether or not it's in their best interests is irrelevant: holding sov is their goal. To say 'well, you should set other goals' is about as effective as someone telling you, 'Gevlon, you should aspire to be a great PvP pilot, able to kill entire fleets with a single frigate.'

ie: it's not at all effective. If you want someone to do what you want, you must first understand their motivations. In this instance, what you want them to do, what you feel would be 'better' would directly mean abandoning those motivations.

Personally, I'd like to see HERO grow to the point where they can make political plays of their own. If that means taking Providence and absorbing some Provibloc corps, then I fully endorse them attempting it - including using the larger blocs' willingness to use them as 'toys' to their advantage. Ultimately, HERO got what they wanted here: the IHUB was destroyed.

So, if you have to take a few punches and act like a sycophant in order to manipulate the more powerful entities into doing things that ultimately benefit you? Do it.

Gevlon said...

@Provi Miner: as Provi was there first and indeed shown some resilience, it's HERO who are dumber. However Provi might be better off skipping this phase, let HERO take the space and start making their life Hell in Provi. This would deny content to NC., Stainwagon and PL.

@BearNClear: MoA, and practically everyone in the game outside of Goons are recruiting EVE players and fight enemies. Goons are the only one who go out of their way to harm players who had no conflicting interest with them. They also don't explain their victories with "being better in EVE" but some roleplaying-racism where you are a sub-human if you don't participate in the Something Awful forums.

@Arrendis: I'm not saying what HERO/Provi should want. I'm saying what they can reasonably want. "Gevlon, you should aspire to be a great PvP pilot, able to kill entire fleets with a single frigate." is an opinion. I could do it, I just don't want to and the speaker wants to change that.

"Gevlon you should capture a C6 WH all by yourself" on the other hand is impossible. That simply can't be done and aspiring for it it dumb. So is HERO or Provi having a say over who holds Sov. They might end up with Sov if PL/N3/CFC decides, but that would be equal to N3 giving me a constellation just to troll Goons.

Personally you'd like to see what The Mittani told you to like to see: HERO/Provi giving enough laughter to N3/PL to don't want a war.

Arrendis said...

Personally you'd like to see what The Mittani told you to like to see

Nope. Mittens doesn't give me my opinions. Part of my job in the CFC is forming my own opinions and analysis. If you're trying to tell your analysts what analysis they should come up with and what opinions they should have after looking at the data... well, then you're going to invade Iraq because of course you'll be greeted as liberators and the entire invasion will pay for itself with Iraqi oil.

Is there propaganda? Of course there is. We build a narrative, N3/PL builds a narrative, you build a narrative... we all do it.

But I don't come here as a representative of the CFC's propaganda machine. I come here on my own time, and spout off with my own opinions.

I promise, if that changes, I'll tell you.

Gevlon said...

@Arrendis: of course you have an independent opinion. That goes to the analysis sent to the leadership.

To public places you don't write your opinion, just CFC propaganda. And I'm dumb to tolerate it.

From now on everything you write will be moderated out without even I reading it.

Provi Miner said...

Galvon, perhaps you should know this that PL has stooped to dropping caps on t1 BC's any fall back and form a resistance to deny PL of content would fail. in fact it would only increase their content as most of provi would be pushed to a few select systems that PL could concentrate more heavily on. It wasn't this last fan fest but the one before where someone asked shadoo about losing and he mentioned getting a black ops fleet whelped in provi. Then before the last fan fest A core fleet caught a PL vulture fleet without cap support and slaughtered them. We may be providing "content" but it is at a price. Provi still stands.

Provi Miner said...

oh and your "not wanting a war" I think you misinterpret the way null wars are currently being fought. In this case cfc has been derping around and it is possible that they could get caught in the cross fire and then you have a major null war appearing out of thin air. Curently I rate that as the most likely potential path to a major null war. If Provi or HERO were to ceed the fight it would only continue the status quo, where as the longer the fights last the more likely the potential for a major war to break out on accident.

Gevlon said...

@Provi Miner: if you wouldn't have a region that PL could easily take, you could threaten PL by camping B0T systems.

Anonymous said...

Dear Gevlon,
you have understood WH mechanics regarding PI efficiency, you have understood the hisec mechanics regarding ganking untanked miners and haulers...
But, you have not understood how provi define themselves, how nulsec warfare works.
So far you only encourage random groups to engage CFC. Yes this causes a huge amount of damage, yes for individual victims of these ganks, it may hurtful, but all in all, this won't cripple CFC as a whole.
And here comes the similarities between your post and CFC vs MoA:

HERO attack Provi to provoke fights in which BL and NC can participate and shoot basically anyone showing up. This gives pilots reasons to log in, form up, undock and get fights.
MoA roaming in CFC space gives pilots a reason to:
"...log in, form up, undock and get fights..."

Mission accomplished!

More important: I am not saying that you or your campaign is irrelevant or dum or useless.
I only sincerely doubt whether your methods are even remotely suitable to drive CFC from Nul...

Druur Monakh said...

Point of order: by mind-blocking Arrendis you deprived yourself of an antidote against confirmation bias.

Even if we accept the premise that Arrendis' comments were nothing but propaganda - propaganda has patterns which you can see through, even if the results are vague (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlinology). As such, her comments were valuable, even with the precaution of "interpretation needed".

Personally I am inclined to believe that Arrendis was true to their own self in the comments - because otherwise Goon propaganda needn't exist. Goon propaganda has developed that much over the years because it had to win over a bunch of rather individualistic-minded people to play a game which superficially is rather boring.[1]

You're depriving yourself of valuable information by blocking Arrendis without reading.[2]

Heck, "valuable information" the only reason I read your blog. Most of the time I think you're just a privileged idiot savante with even less understanding of human motivations than I have - but once in a while you stumble upon kernels of truth which I would never have found on my own. And when you don't stumble - well, it gives me yet another angle I should be able to argue against.

[1] Lest you get confused: I don't like the Goons. But I can rationally appreciate what they have accomplished, and why.

[2] You're also calling your readers stupid. What if you made a point, people like Arrendis made a counter-point, you posted a refute, and then ignored that person for the rest of the comment thread - wouldn't your readers be able to make up their own minds about who is ultimately right?

But seemingly you're not trusting your readers to come to the right conclusion themselves - hence you are resorting to blanking out opposing voices.

And after all, Arrendis did make points, not just troll with non-sequitur insults.

Gevlon said...

@Druur: Goon propaganda is all over the EVE community, it's not like Arrendis was its only source.

He - like Goons usually - spammed to make the comment section useless. Argued with every letter, every comma, every dot to provoke an offtopic and irrelevant argument that goes pages long to make people stop reading.