What's the purpose of the GRR project? To destroy Goons? Yes, that's the immediate goal. But the real goal behind it, is to use the destruction of Goons as a shining example what one man can do against crowds of morons and slackers, supported by socials. I won't be happy when I see the last Goon structure explode, I'll be happy when people say "yes, this is the way". Sure, it helps a lot that Goons are stereotypically evil, like the antagonist in a cheap cartoon. Unlike most groups which are ignored by anyone who aren't their enemies, everyone wants Goons to explode.
But if it's a teaching project, if it's about "look guys, one man can hit the largest coalition hard", there must be a target audience. Who are they? Are they the victims of the Goons, the "highsec pubbie shitlords"? Do I want highsec to rise up and unite against the evil Goons who grief them for fun? No. The clown show of James 315 have proven that they can't even defend against to a comedy threat. Do you really think that someone incapable to fit Damage Control and press the orbit button will do anything? The repeated "anti-ganking" movements fail again and again because no one fleets up. Like any M&S, they demand someone else to fight back. Or they just throw a tantrum for the amusement of the readers of minerbumping.com.
No M&S or social will change the World. Who am I talking to then? To the "burnout top PvP-er". He has a supercapital, he has several pilots, he has a nice killboard, he has a "prestigious" alliance tag and he can't make himself log in once again. Why? Because he pwned everyone and nothing happened. GFs were exchanged, ships were replaced and at the end of the campaign the fate of the region was decided in a shady deal and not in a battle. He realized that despite he rose as high as a PvP-er can, he is essentially still an F1 drone. He sees that he isn't any closer to write history in EVE than he was 3 years ago.
The reason for his irrelevance is that he was competing with other line members (hostiles on the field, friendlies on the killboard), while carrying out orders from those in charge. Trying to do something better than the other leads to ... doing it better than the other, while "it" will be done. To make a difference, you have to choose what "it" is. Now the standard way is becoming the one who makes the calls. The problem is that the leadership is a closed and non-meritocratic circle and you can join by stupid amount of buttkissing.
EVE is a simple resource management game. As long as you can pay SRP, you'll have a fleet. The current leaders control the "natural resources" like moons and renters. Becoming a leader means you compete for these resources with the established leaders. However, by using your own funding, you add new resources to the pool, and no one else can control these personal resources. While one could take the moons of CFC and then The Mittani would be nothing, no one can take my ability to trade.
The 512B I spent on GRR in 2014 is high, but not something that many high-level players can't provide. Everyone with a titan already has 1/5 of it. Even better, they have a method to make such money. All they need is to get rid of the damn thing which is good for nothing else but pressing F1 on command and use that money (and new money from their titan-earning method) to make difference. EVE is full of PvP-ers who'll be happy to use that money.
I hope that instead of unsubscribing (giving up), they "level up" and turn from "enabled" to enablers and start to make their own stories, instead of trying to be in the front row in someone else's story. It's much better to be a player in an RTS game than the most elite piece.
One more thing: don't be a control freak! Of course you can't control PvP-ers, you can just enable them. But can you command a resource harvester unit in an RTS to become a flying fighter? It's obvious that if you choose to enable it (build it from your resources), you can only send it to resource collection, just like you can only send a highsec pipe camper to do highsec pipe camping. But since it's you who enable them, it's your enemies who'll be pipe-camped.
But if it's a teaching project, if it's about "look guys, one man can hit the largest coalition hard", there must be a target audience. Who are they? Are they the victims of the Goons, the "highsec pubbie shitlords"? Do I want highsec to rise up and unite against the evil Goons who grief them for fun? No. The clown show of James 315 have proven that they can't even defend against to a comedy threat. Do you really think that someone incapable to fit Damage Control and press the orbit button will do anything? The repeated "anti-ganking" movements fail again and again because no one fleets up. Like any M&S, they demand someone else to fight back. Or they just throw a tantrum for the amusement of the readers of minerbumping.com.
No M&S or social will change the World. Who am I talking to then? To the "burnout top PvP-er". He has a supercapital, he has several pilots, he has a nice killboard, he has a "prestigious" alliance tag and he can't make himself log in once again. Why? Because he pwned everyone and nothing happened. GFs were exchanged, ships were replaced and at the end of the campaign the fate of the region was decided in a shady deal and not in a battle. He realized that despite he rose as high as a PvP-er can, he is essentially still an F1 drone. He sees that he isn't any closer to write history in EVE than he was 3 years ago.
The reason for his irrelevance is that he was competing with other line members (hostiles on the field, friendlies on the killboard), while carrying out orders from those in charge. Trying to do something better than the other leads to ... doing it better than the other, while "it" will be done. To make a difference, you have to choose what "it" is. Now the standard way is becoming the one who makes the calls. The problem is that the leadership is a closed and non-meritocratic circle and you can join by stupid amount of buttkissing.
EVE is a simple resource management game. As long as you can pay SRP, you'll have a fleet. The current leaders control the "natural resources" like moons and renters. Becoming a leader means you compete for these resources with the established leaders. However, by using your own funding, you add new resources to the pool, and no one else can control these personal resources. While one could take the moons of CFC and then The Mittani would be nothing, no one can take my ability to trade.
The 512B I spent on GRR in 2014 is high, but not something that many high-level players can't provide. Everyone with a titan already has 1/5 of it. Even better, they have a method to make such money. All they need is to get rid of the damn thing which is good for nothing else but pressing F1 on command and use that money (and new money from their titan-earning method) to make difference. EVE is full of PvP-ers who'll be happy to use that money.
I hope that instead of unsubscribing (giving up), they "level up" and turn from "enabled" to enablers and start to make their own stories, instead of trying to be in the front row in someone else's story. It's much better to be a player in an RTS game than the most elite piece.
One more thing: don't be a control freak! Of course you can't control PvP-ers, you can just enable them. But can you command a resource harvester unit in an RTS to become a flying fighter? It's obvious that if you choose to enable it (build it from your resources), you can only send it to resource collection, just like you can only send a highsec pipe camper to do highsec pipe camping. But since it's you who enable them, it's your enemies who'll be pipe-camped.
15 comments:
"But the real goal behind it, is to use the destruction of Goons as a shining example what one man can do against crowds of morons and slackers, supported by socials."
Is that not exactly what Goons do anyway?
Show what you can do with an assorted rag-tag band of individuals (what you would deem either morons or slackers or socials) with the right leader?
The ironic thing is, any demise of Goons will likely come about through one of the things you dislike in this post, a shady backroom deal, much like any alliance destruction in Eve, it is usually achieved through the metagame.
You are showing that money can buy you people willing to blow their ships up for you (just as any SRP does), and that vicariously, anyone can feel like they are part of Eve history, as written by themselves, which is the only way that counts.
thanks gob, So I will try and explain how I try and change eve. Those M&S they can learn, they can be taught. Yes it is hard, but the results are often surprising. A toon who whined in local last year is now docking up and reshipping to join the fleet. Thats my way to change eve. Its not 1 to 1 but is a lot of initial 1 on 1. Encouragement, examples (especially the fails), cautionary tales, and more encouragement. Most HR people will tell you praise critique, praise are the keys to changing behavior. But the number 1 way to change people is not through example or words but by simply asking: "hey we got a fleet up you want to join?" "You been about a month now instead of ship spinning I got this cheap ask t1 frig you just follow along" almost every m&s I have gotten into the fleet has responded very well (sometimes surpassing me).
Yeah those bitter vets could enable pvp'ers or they could enable them and fly again into harms way with a mission, with a purpose.
You honestly need to target their renters and shut them down in Vale and Branch, Target the Big money renters like 30plus and Full Spectrum Inc who rent multiple systems, each one of them has to be paying 20 plus bil a month to CFC's, then target their other money streams. Hurt their wallets first.
there is only one finite resource in eve. two if you count real currency but lets assume we don't seek to increase player spending. the limited resource is played time. your post assumes some players are better making isk than shooting others and that each player should focus on what they do best.
the isk maker should fund the pvper and other content creators like FCs and alliance leaders. but only if their goals align. to go a step further the pvper should also only support the alliance leadership if their goals match.
so having a mono-culture should be the goal of any group. the goons, it must be recognised, do this as well as any other group.(and I'm grr goon personally)
what you believe they lack is showing respect for all types of players. but in the same way you don't respect untanked miner pvers, when the goons have people of the calibre of those on their finance team, perhaps the pvers applying to CFC aren't worth their time.
"He has a supercapital, he has several pilots, he has a nice killboard, he has a "prestigious" alliance tag and he can't make himself log in once again. Why? Because he pwned everyone and nothing happened"
Is that not exactly what is happening here too? You are paying for people to attack goons, they are getting some kills on their keyboard, but nothing is actually happening.
The thing is your target audience, they quit because they are not being entertained. Convincing them to grind isk to pay some other group to play the game they used to play is not going to entertain them. You'll be hard pushed to find anyone willing to do that, because it's a waste of time. This isn't a real world political issue, it's not some cause that needs to be fought against, it's a group of players in a computer game. Who really wants to devote that much time to trying to pay one group to attack another?
Who really wants to devote that much time to trying to pay one group to attack another?
Every single corp, alliance leader and FC.
Can you give an example of a single corporation, alliance leader or FC that spends all their in game time grinding isk to pay one group to fight another?
@Babar: They "devote their time". Remember, "time is money". The gameplay of FCs, corp and alliance leaders is to enable their fleet, corp and alliance members to fight. They mostly don't do it by paying (though they manage SRP and moons and renters), but by leading them into fights.
perhaps your own altruism and good morals blind you. In a perfect world FCs and alliance leadership give their time to allow others to play the pvp game. however RMT likely means they actually are selling their time not giving it away.
if that is true then you can see why the other financiers of eve don't need to find pvpers to support... they can directly convert the proceeds of their time via RMT. the FCs and leaders have to convert their time into power, then into isk, before they can commit RMT.
The problem here is one of understanding motivations. People are very unlikely to accept your way as correct because it doesn't get them the feeling they want from the game.
When someone goes out on fleet to do something, let's say to save a Titan, defend a station etc. they complete the fleet and feel they have accomplished something. The leadership, or the titan pilot thank the guys who came to defend, the FC gets thanks for the fleet, most everyone got to do something they enjoyed, and achieved a collective goal. Pats on the back and a feeling of accomplishment all around.
You advocate that people should spend that time grinding ISK, to give to other people, to attack a nebulous target for ill-defined goals to little to no noticeable effect. There is no way, for practically everyone who plays this game that this is going to be an enjoyable way to spend their time nor grant the same feeling of accomplishment and success.
Sure, they don't need to follow your goals, they could hire people to complete their own goals, but there are few to be had; Own space, carry out a vendetta, I start to run out of goals you need a fleet for there. By your logic if they want space, they should rent it, which would likely be cheaper than paying people to take it anyway, so why bother?
It all boils down to Eve as a sandbox; Many people enjoy being an FC, or a corp or alliance leader, and these people will continue to do what they do for fun, until another game lets them do it better. Let's say you defeat the CFC, or even show you have a meaningful impact on them, you will prove that mass hiring mercenaries is a valid way to achieve something in the game (that isn't news, the question is if enough mercenaries exist). But very few will want to play your way, and others have demonstrated that building large alliances and coalitions is a valid way to achieve something. As a final injury, it would be pretty unlikely that the story that was remembered will be that you defeated the CFC, the hypothetical story would be that the CFC failscaded for a number of reasons including the recent patch changes and were eventually headshot by BL (or whoever.) The story of Eve in most peoples minds will always be one of alliances and space battles, financiers will be forgotten.
@Temendra: every time I see another expensive CFC ship going boom by Marmite or Mordus, I smile and happily link it in the next post. How is it not the same accomplishment as "yay we saved that titan due to my awesome FC-ing"?
@Gevlon It seems like it is for you, that's cool, but I would expect there are few to no people who share similar feelings.
If this is your goal, to convince people that your way is valid and works, you really do need to show some concrete results soon. Maybe you are playing a small part in something, but at the moment there is no appreciable negative effect on the CFC that is attributable to you. You really need to show things like Goonwaffe membership numbers, trends over the years and a statistically significant decline since you started you project. Especially if compared with several alliances of similar vintage showing their healthier state over that year. This is quite a bit of number crunching, but I doubt you're the kind of person to back off from what needs doing because it's too much effort.
Also some advice, leave off the sensationalist posts about "all the CFC are botting!" if that looks like overdramatic nonsense to me, it must just look like tears to most of Eve.
"everyone wants Goons to explode."
=> No, I'm sure there are lots of pepole (at least me) who don't care about them because "they're irrelevant" for them.
For the rest of th post about "elite pvp-er" : it is still related to the goal you define. Controling nullsec systems or owning a fleet is only of of the many goals you could have.
As a goon, I spend my money enabling little bees to take their rightful place as princes of the universe to whom all power, wealth and pubbie tears belong.
It is good that you feel that you are doing your part with your money to enable others to do more.
@Arrendis: it's been a while and I forgot why I banned you from my blog. I don't want Goon propaganda here. Go back to TMC and stay there!
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