Greedy Goblin

Monday, January 13, 2014

Why will Darwins Lemmings win?

As you probably know, in cooperation with The Marmite Collective, we created a new alliance with the purpose of highsec foreverwar against Goonswarm. Both individual players and PvP corporations are welcomed to join. Marmites give their expertise, I give the money. The recruitment post is up for Darwin's Lemmings!

Check on the official forum thread about forming this Goon-bashing alliance. It's already 12 pages long and 90% of the posters are Goons or pets telling it won't work. Several directors and Mynnna himself with his nice CSM tag commented too. Why are Goons so busy naysaying a failed project of a "loser who doesn't gets EVE"? They should lay back and laugh!

Because the Goons know better than anyone else that it will work. It will work because it was tried and tested already. There is a very successful alliance that is formed with the very same ruleset. It's called ... Goonswarm Federation.

Once upon a time, there was Band of Brothers. An "elite PvP" alliance, one that was centered around the idea that "player skill" matters in a war. That having good kills and not having embarrassing losses matters. Their spirit still linger in the trolls who tell me that I should get respect by getting into difficult fights. They don't understand that in a war, respect doesn't matter. Results matter. Dead is dead, alive is alive. If you kill a faction battleship with a T1 cruiser, you get respect from Ripard. But it's a waste of time. Drop a pair of battleships on it and it's dead in no time. Same loot, same kill.

Goons didn't care about respect. They laughed on elite PvP and set up a very strange recruitment method: they recruited every warm body from the forum of the founders. These players sucked horribly. Yet their swarm blotted out the Sun. The war between those who were proficient in the "art of pew" and a huge mix of trolls, 1-day old newbies and such, ended with total destruction of the "elite".

Why did this abomination happen? For four reasons:
  1. EVE is a unique game by not limiting group sizes. 2v1 fights are usually ganks in League of Legends, it would take a very-very good player to win 1v2 against even bronze scrubs. But as the game is 5v5, 1v2 fights can only happen if the 1 forgot his ward. In EVE you can enforce 2v1 by simply having a twice bigger fleet.
  2. EVE is an MMO. It means that you can reach anything by putting in enough time (and accounts). You can grind down a region in bombless bombers if you put in enough manhours. You can grind out the price of ships so you can lose them again and again. Of course your skill gives a multiplier to your effort, but only the result matters. I mean I can make about 700M/hour by trading, while the most skilless ISK-making activity, highsec belt mining gives about 15M/hour. However a miner can still be more rich than me if he puts in 47x more time. Actually it's account-time as you can mine with two accounts at the same time but can't update orders. So a miner multiboxing 10 accounts and playing 5x more is more rich than me (see also: bots).
  3. Socials are socials. Respect and acceptance matters to them. Their morale can be ruined by local channel trash talking, not giving them "GF" or even forum trashing.
  4. Member =/= alliance. The elite PvP alliances were upset if anyone "trashed up the killboard". To prevent this loss, they limited members from ratting, ordered self-destruction of supers or even kicked otherwise useful and loyal members. Goons knew that the Goon ratter losing his Golem is a Goon ratter losing his Golem and not Goonswarm losing a Golem.
BoB disappeared because they had structures to be destroyed. With the destruction of Southern Coalition, the last remnants of the "Elite PvP" ideology were removed from wars, and remained only where "fair game" environment is upheld. Highsec PvP-ers can't be outblobbed on timer fights, because there aren't timer fights. They fight if they find the enemy fair, or if it catches them by superior hunting skill. They often wardec nullsec groups and indeed get good ISK ratio due to their superior skill. Just check the Marmite Killboard. In the last year, according to the in-game war history, Marmite did 250B damage to GSF, receiving less than 1/10th of it. It's huge if we consider the size difference. However, exactly because of that, it's something that nullsec empires are writing off as operational cost.

Darwin's Lemmings is forming on the very ideas the Goons formed on originally. Hundreds of horrible wannabe-PvP-ers in horrible ships zerging down Goons. This ragtag crew will have hilarious losses. Yet, they will be the end of the Goon presence in highsec. Why?
  1. EVE is not limiting group sizes. When Goons had to grind down Delve after TEST abandoning it, they had to abort the ongoing ice interdiction. Outside of organized campaigns, highsec Goon presence is very limited. Remember that on my POCO attacks 1-1 Goons shown up. A 3-men gang could outblob them 3v1!
  2. EVE is an MMO, you can reach anything by grinding for enough time. Want a guaranteed Goon kill? Sit on a gate with a remote seboed Tornado. If you sit there long enough, a Goon is bound to jump in the gate.
  3. Socials are socials, respect and acceptance matters to them. Being killed and trash-talked by a highsec carebear hurts Goons. I have 12 pages of forum to prove how much their butt is hurt.
  4. Member =/= alliance. Lemming#1242 spends 3 hours gatecamping in a Tornado just to lose it to a Goon frig? His problem, his time, his Tornado, not mine, not Marmites.
Actually, we'll be Goonier than Goons. They had to limit the "everyone can come" recruitment to SA forum, because in EVE there are awoxers. If an awoxer gets into GSF, he can awox all blues and can awox ratting Machariels or even Titans. If an awoxer gets into one of the Lemmings corp (most likely to the default corp), he can awox cheap PvP subcaps of his corpmates only. So we can literally invite every warm body. Thousands of Rifters against Goonswarm. Oh, the irony!

Why should you come to Darwins Lemmings instead of RvB which also offers highsec PvP to everyone trough a foreverwar? Because RvB plays a game within EVE, with various rules like no podding, no ECM, honor 1v1, no neutral boosting, no trashtalking and so on. Darwins Lemmings [.GRR.] is fighting an all out, no-fair war with GSF. No one will give you "good fight" here. They will give you tears and how much they don't care about that ship or POCO or the ability to come to highsec. They also didn't want burn Jita 3 or this year ice interdiction anyway (that part is actually true, after that horrible failure last year).

If you still have doubts that we will win, look at the first kill Darwins Lemmings scored against Goons. The ship type can simply be a coincidence. But I believe it's a sign. Its a symbol of what Goons really are and what will happen to them. If you are a Goon and wish to continue the life the above dead Goon represents, beg your leaders to accept my terms of surrender!


PS: I've finally found a spaceship that I can enjoy PvP in. And I can fly it in a few days! Who knows what can come out of that.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

What are your victory conditions? What is "winning" this war to you? can you specify for the record? We cannot judge your success or failure without knowing what you will measure yourself by.

Also you are not "goonier than goons". The shunning of elite PvP isn't the core of goons - the core of goons is that it is an external community with its own, much older than eve, culture. There have been other entities with zerg tactics which have risen, and fallen, and goons carry on because they are not "eve born".

Anonymous said...

I've really been enjoying your blog recently.

Best wishes to the lemmings, may they bathe in the tears of their foes.

Gevlon said...

Good point, am exact win condition: taking all Goon pocos in highsec.

Also, while Goonwaffe is indeed community born, in Goonswarm Federation and even more CFC, they are a minority.

Unknown said...

This sounds like a nobel effort. I may have to make an alt just to join in the fun.

Anonymous said...

In RvB there are no rules when you're fighting 3rd party war targets. Rules are only for Red v Blue fights and for the themed Ganked roams.

The principle reason I joined RvB was so I can get some good fights without having to put in the time investment of camping or hunting. I'm a very casual player. One account and no alts. So the RvB situation works for me.

Your idea sounds like fun though. GSF definitely needs to be taken down a peg in order to keep the game fresh. Not sure what the POCO situation is with RvB and CFC since I've mostly been playing PS2 instead of eve. Hope I get to shoot some pocos with yall.

Anonymous said...

They have to deny it, but after reading the Eve-O Crime & Punishment thread, I'd say you've really pulled the Goon chain. They protest too much.

Especially liked the Goon director who felt he had to say he has more ISK than you. If I was a worker bee that would raise an eyebrow.

Goons are slowly wondering if maybe they're not quite as bright as they'd like people to think.

Provi Miner said...

reads like you found something fun to do in eve (a first I believe), till now you have done "things" that involve specific items. Make isk, do ganks, dumpster wormholes. All that, I hope you find this enjoyable. It would appear so judging by your comments.

Have fun

Anonymous said...

This alliance almost makes me want to re-sub to eve...

Anonymous said...

sorry, i had to split up this comment, because your blog seems to have a pretty small limit on max-size of comments.

i think i have to clean up with a few misconceptions here.

BoB where never built on the idea of player skill or anything. We where found to counter the blob that was called Phoenix alliance, pretty much the predecessor of the later Northern Coalition, of which you find most still active players within the CFC nowadays.

We employed t2-sniper-doctrines, grid-warp tactics etc. because that for us was the only way to fight our already larger in number foes. We saw ourselves as elite, not because we picked the largest fights, but because we saw the game as a hobby, much like others would go train with their football team, we would play eve. We would expect everyone to learn more about the game, its mechanics, and to train the skills that where best for the team, not a single player.
We where never, as you describe, about winning good fights or respect. You started a fight with one of us? we would come for you. We had a chance for an easy win? we'd take it, but we wouldn't bail just because the (player) numbers where not in our favour.

Goons entered the scene much later. Goons came already from their founding forums, and what they tried to pull, they didnt set up as their method of recruitment, is was their modus operandi. They had done the "we join a game im huge numbers and try to ruin the fun for everyone else"-approach many times before, EVE was the first game (besides some weird survival game), where they did not manage to do so straight away. Some say EVE is the game where goons got conquered by the game.

The huge conflict never came from us being elite, and goons being the poor newbies, the conflict started when Smoske died in a car accident, and a goon named Tetsujin made a forum signature, which portrait a truck running over a Stickman-Smoske.
This got out of hands on the forums, obviously a lot of people reacted quite emotional, and goon leadership, pleased with the turmoil encouraged their players to put oil on the already burning fires. In a result Sir Molle declared war on Goons, and shortly after we marched in Operation Goonicide on their assets in syndicate.

Anonymous said...

part 2 of 2


The time that followed we got busy in the pendulum wars against ASCN (and our allies against D2) which resulted in the first titan kill. Goons used the time to rebuild, and form new alliances they also started a hand full of things that put 'em where they are today like their strong propaganda, portraying our side as the evil elitist guys, and their side as the "little man" bullied around; and for the first time they found that having others fight their conflicts was the best method to do so.

They forged their later alliances and got a lot of sympathies when kugutsumen (of pandemic legion) posted logs from the hacked (not spied) BoB leadership forums, showing an incident where t20 (a ccp employee) had spawned items (t2 blueprints), which was already resolved (BoB had reported it to CCP themselves). Utilizing that story, as well as the already painted little-guy image and Sir Molle's mistake of announcing intentions for BoB to conquer all 0.0, they managed to form a strong front for the first Great War, where most (0.0) alliances banded together and attacked fortress delve.

after that most of the better known stories today (Operation Max, Disbanding of BoB etc) happened. (Even though most adaptions of the story are filled with ideas seeded by goon propaganda)

and, no goons did not recruit from goon forums because of being scared of awoxing, in fact Awox hadn't even started his reign when goons started. Goons recruited only from SA, because thats how the usual Goon MO worked. Step 1: Get together with likeminded Goons, Step 2: pick a game (and a server), Step 3: Invade in big numbers, Step 4: ruin the game for everyone. For example, they hit Navy Field while it was in its Beta, and for weeks created an environment wher any game started would end up in a ton of players just writing "goon" in chat, and starting friendly-fire on his team. (You can compare pre-eve goon behaviour best to the infamous 4chan raids on habbo back in the days).

Anyways, besides your misunderstanding of EVE history, which i hope i could improve here a bit, i wish you the best of luck with your goal, it is refreshing to see someone actually attacking goons, rather than whining about their numberical superiority.

Anonymous said...

"2v1 fights are usually ganks in League of Legends, it would take a very-very good player to win 1v2 against even bronze scrubs."

That doesn't make any sense, EVE is the game which would require very-very good players to win 2:1 outnumbered fights (assuming they are behind by the same amount of ISK as well).

In LoL on the other hand you can easily kill 2 Players even at the beginning if they are bad. And it gets worse the further the game advances. Just take a fed Mordekaiser who manages to blink into the enemy carry, ults and kills him, and then goes on to take down everyone else he can catch.

And those are not even examples against bad players vs good players, as with the bronze scrubs you described, but just players who perform a bit worse than usual in this particular game.

Phelps said...

Your making it too complicated, Gevlon. The Goons are trolls. That is their nature and purpose. The one thing that a troll cannot abide is to be trolled back harder. This is what you are doing.

A troll lives by exploiting inherent imbalances in a game. The Goons lost this war long before you showed up -- they lost it as soon as they started taking POCOs and living by the Rules of Eve. Trolls should never live by the Rules.

The Goons can actually make this a win-win whenever they like -- by giving up their ill-gotten sense of "respectability" and going back to being the trolls they were formed to be.

Troll the Goons to death. It is the only way they can die.

Powers said...

@Gevlon Thank you for announcing the narrative metric I will use to rally around.

I'll go ahead and help you out with that RVB decision~

Anonymous said...

"They don't understand that in a war, respect doesn't matter. Results matter."

Bombless bombers.

Anonymous said...

This is amusing and like others tempts me to resub but I shall resist.

I do think this, unlike some earlier endeavors, is helped by dubious personalities that play EVE. I also was disappointed that EVE was far less about building and conquering and far more about gf and griefing.

Most of your previous endeavours were about how intelligent, knowledgeable players who spent enough time could create something. This was always going to appeal to a very tiny % of EVE players, almost all of whom were already productively occupied. This is about unskilled players without a significant time commitment achieving something they kind of care about by hurting others. It shall be much more popular.

But the Goon propaganda efforts are huge; you need to keep combating that as much as the POCOs.

GL!

Anonymous said...

I suggest win condition:

1) taking all Goon pocos in highsec

or

2) Goons surrendering

or

3) forcing CCP to change the rules.

it is not out of the question that the end result is Goons using their power and influence to get CCP to change the rules. I would regard that as very unfortunate but a victory.

Foo said...

Do you have, or know of, a central place to report wardeccable (i.e. Goon owned) customs offices?

Anonymous said...

Dir sir, I was waiting for you to do something decent for 1.5 year. You did not disappoint me - congratulations to this project. How about leading the war on the economy front? What do the GSF trade? What do they need to maintain their status in null? Can we hurt them in this way? You surely have enough and personal interest in market mechanics.

P.S. You don't need to publish this comment, I'll enjoy just reading the articles if you happen to do something on market front.

Keep up the good work, more content, less ego.

Lach

MoxNix said...

The only good goon is a dead goon!

I hope this project is extremely successful!

Anyone looking more goon killing fun should check this out too.

http://merchantmonarchy.blogspot.ca/2014/01/death-race-2014-starts-monday-jan-20th.html