Bob don't cheat. Never have when I've gone up against them and probably never will. The GM's and admins amongst them will keep them honest and give stern lectures where necessary. Anyone who breaks the rules badly would probably be kicked from the alliance. But by the same token, don't try any exploit when you are going against them. Your chances of being caught by a GM are significantly higher. Fight Bob in the spirit of the game and you have nothing to fear.
It doesn't even have to be GM corruption, or turning a blind eye to exploitive play for it to constitute an unfair advantage. If the GM is involved as a player on a team, then anyone who plays on that team gets *instant* access to CS if something goes wrong, and gets an eyewitness who can appraise the situation and take action immediately.
Say you are forming a fleet on one side of a gate, and you get lag. If you are not with a GM, you either have to petition one, and wait, possibly far in excess of your window of opportunity. But if you are with one, then there is a GM there that can see the difficulty, and perhaps send a shout down the halls to reinforce the node. Not an exploit. Not GM corruption. Yet still it constitutes an unfair advantage.
Say you see an exploit happen. In any other case, you'll have to send a petition, and hope that the GM believes you. But if you have a GM that can actually verify the exploit when it happens, then you'll get a faster, more definitive response simply because he is involved directly with the party who sees the exploit, and can take depositions (for lack of a better term) at the scene as to how each was fitted, what happened, etc. Again, its not corruption. Its not giving an exploit a blind eye. In fact, quite the opposite. Yet it still constitutes an unfair advantage that the other side who doesn't have a GM on Ventrillo doesn't have.
Say someone does spam CTRL-Q. Say many people do. Maybe there was no command from the gang leader to do so, and such things are frowned upon in the alliance generally, but some do it out of force of habit, or do it anyway. If you get the accusation that your alliance is lagging up the node by doing that sort of thing, you have a GM there to testify that no command to CTRL-Q was given by anyone in the gang chat, or on the voice server. The alliance who doesn't have a GM has to be investigated in order to find that out, and may even suffer disciplinary sanctions while the investigation is ongoing.
So the whole issue of having CCP staff and GMs participating in things like alliances and gangs is only partly a matter of corruption. The bigger issue is the ability to cut through red tape, and the bureaucracy, and get a direct line to the people who can solve the problems. And in a zero-sum game like EVE, with as many technical problems as it has, it constitutes an unfair advantage that the other side cannot counter.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
I'd like to apologize and retract my statement about BoB running the bugged complex. I misread my propaganda sheet and it says ASCN runs that complex still, and suffered little to no bannings from the exploitation of it, and also a third alliance was running it as well but hadn't yet been identified. I assumed BoB at some point ran it, but that was unfair of me.
Originally posted by Beatnik59 Originally posted by Corrd
Bob don't cheat. Never have when I've gone up against them and probably never will. The GM's and admins amongst them will keep them honest and give stern lectures where necessary. Anyone who breaks the rules badly would probably be kicked from the alliance. But by the same token, don't try any exploit when you are going against them. Your chances of being caught by a GM are significantly higher. Fight Bob in the spirit of the game and you have nothing to fear.
It doesn't even have to be GM corruption, or turning a blind eye to exploitive play for it to constitute an unfair advantage. If the GM is involved as a player on a team, then anyone who plays on that team gets *instant* access to CS if something goes wrong, and gets an eyewitness who can appraise the situation and take action immediately.
Say you are forming a fleet on one side of a gate, and you get lag. If you are not with a GM, you either have to petition one, and wait, possibly far in excess of your window of opportunity. But if you are with one, then there is a GM there that can see the difficulty, and perhaps send a shout down the halls to reinforce the node. Not an exploit. Not GM corruption. Yet still it constitutes an unfair advantage.
Say you see an exploit happen. In any other case, you'll have to send a petition, and hope that the GM believes you. But if you have a GM that can actually verify the exploit when it happens, then you'll get a faster, more definitive response simply because he is involved directly with the party who sees the exploit, and can take depositions (for lack of a better term) at the scene as to how each was fitted, what happened, etc. Again, its not corruption. Its not giving an exploit a blind eye. In fact, quite the opposite. Yet it still constitutes an unfair advantage that the other side who doesn't have a GM on Ventrillo doesn't have.
Say someone does spam CTRL-Q. Say many people do. Maybe there was no command from the gang leader to do so, and such things are frowned upon in the alliance generally, but some do it out of force of habit, or do it anyway. If you get the accusation that your alliance is lagging up the node by doing that sort of thing, you have a GM there to testify that no command to CTRL-Q was given by anyone in the gang chat, or on the voice server. The alliance who doesn't have a GM has to be investigated in order to find that out, and may even suffer disciplinary sanctions while the investigation is ongoing.
So the whole issue of having CCP staff and GMs participating in things like alliances and gangs is only partly a matter of corruption. The bigger issue is the ability to cut through red tape, and the bureaucracy, and get a direct line to the people who can solve the problems. And in a zero-sum game like EVE, with as many technical problems as it has, it constitutes an unfair advantage that the other side cannot counter.
I'm not a GM for EVE but I've been a GM for other games in the past. Unless CCP has completely lost their marbles any GM "player" is strictly forbidden from letting his fellow players know he is actually a GM.
In the game I was a GM in it was actually an actionable HR offense to let players know you were a GM if you were playing a player character. As your player you are a player. As your GM you are a GM and never are the two paths to meet. In the game I was in we even had to file a petition just like anyone else. We were NOT allowed to take action of any kind ourselves.
Dunno if CCP follows that policy but most MMO's do and I have no reason to believe that CCP would be any different. For exactly the reasons you mentioned above.
Sure there's still the fact that some red tape will get cut. But not quite to the extent of what you're stating. Using GM status to 'jump the line' actually got a couple folks fired if I recall correctly.
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
All I know is that the supply routes into and around ASCN space are littered with mercenary corps hired by (allegedly) BoB to disrupt supply lines in and out of ASCN space. Since I have made a living in this go-between space for quite some time, it has become a hassle for me and members of the small corp I am in.
Isn't it a little pathetic that Eve allows you to have a political situation reach critical mass like the war here, but lack latency and horsepower to pull off a war like this?
If blobbing or node crashes determine the success of a particular alliance's war efforts, what can these guys hang their hats on at the end of the day? Have the proven anythihg? You may be able to have 30k people logged in at once, but anymore than a couple hundred players in a sector of space, and you have a slide show...
Too bad, the ideas are in place, yet CCP can't offer you the flour to bake the cake...
well with the addition of 30 more blade servers(60 nodes) anda additional Ramsam along with some upgrade of the network they should be able to handle this better. Sadly the current issue with 0.0 is with the cluster balancing is that the systems are not allocated as much processing power due to the normally lower number of players. It will be interesting to see how much the new upgrades will help with node crashes out in 0.0
Well ship prices haven't risen but named missile Tech 1 launchers are going through the roof. XR-3200's have gone up by over 1.5 million in the past 7 days. And Arbalests have gone up by almost 3 million. I noticed today when I was kitting a new ship I wanted to try out. Wound up scavenging from one I wasn't using instead of buying new gear for it.
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
Originally posted by Rod_B Thats got more to do with all the suicidal caracals in empire then anything else I'd bet.
You wouldn't be Rod Blaine wouldn't you
Seems like this war has reached these forums as well. It is interesting how people are so fatalistic about things in this game. No victory or defeat is final in EvE. Alliances and players will come and go, wars are won and lost. But so long as people are having fun and new players are joining the community, the cycle will just continue. Just like it is in the real world.
This war between ASCN and BoB is just another example of what makes the game so great.
It is unfortunate that a few people are taking it way too seriously than it should be. There has been a ton of smack from both sides and the so called "neutral observers". But that's expected from a PvP intensive game, and to be honest, I don't think it's a fair reflection of who these people really are. Still I do wish some of those people would tone it back just a bit. It makes EvE look like CS. So what if you loose a few ships or even a few stations? EvE would be boring if there wasn't conflict. The greatest achievement in EvE isn't building an empire, it's loosing it all and then getting it all back.
There are always more challenges to meet. I wish ASCN and BoB all the luck and fun in this conflict.
Seems like this war has reached these forums as well.
This war between ASCN and BoB is just another example of what makes the game so great.
It is unfortunate that a few people are taking it way too seriously than it should be. There has been a ton of smack from both sides and the so called "neutral observers". But that's expected from a PvP intensive game, and to be honest, I don't think it's a fair reflection of who these people really are. Still I do wish some of those people would tone it back just a bit. It makes EvE look like CS. So what if you loose a few ships or even a few stations? EvE would be boring if there wasn't conflict. The greatest achievement in EvE isn't building an empire, it's loosing it all and then getting it all back.
There are always more challenges to meet. I wish ASCN and BoB all the luck and fun in this conflict.
Well said Gamrag!
I do not post often on the EVE-O forums and during a "time of war" I'll exhibit extra care to avoid "flame" and "troll" threads.
BoB and ASCN are going to show several things to the community, the industry and CCP: To the players, we'll see the Risk vs the Reward. The community might invision the scope and calibre of the game. CCP will identify thier current infrastructure is inept in balancing server load and lacks the ability to provide an uninterupted experiance.
I've got my ISK riding on ASCN. I think BoB will likely kick more ass battle-for-battle but in the end ASCN will come out on top.
One interesting point is the level of deception through alternate means outside of the scope of the EVE client that's being utilized to gain an upper hand. My belief is that using an alt to infiltrate a corp in an opposing alliance just to gain access to private forums and a private Teamspeak server with the full intent of disruption is questionable if not "cheating".
I'm sure once the VoIP features become implimented in EVE that my position, and those using questionable tactics (I want to call it "exploits"), would deffintely change. At least using an ingame client side VoIP would then be part of the game thus part of the viable options to disrupt your opponets. (if you have to utillize a 3rd party program of any scope to gain an advantage agasint your advesaries I think there's a problem even if said program is accepted and utilized by the core of the players involved.)
Guys remember this is not a discussion on the political aspects and who is better but a discussion on whether this war will have similiar ramafications as the GNW did on the entire EVE market.
I think it will be fun to watch. War for the sake of war doesnt seem like a great idea, but the best defense is a good offense. I'm not sure which side REALLY instigated, but either way, both are big, rich, and powerful, and one of them is thinking that its a good time to knock the other of their high horse. I personally dont think of BoB as a bunch of bragging people. All the posts I have ever seen by BoB members seem very mature and educated. I have little experiance with ASCN, so I cant comment on their side. BoB, while having a great deal of actual muscle, is made more powerful each day by rumors and propaganda. I love the jokes about how BoB is going to open the EVE gate and such. As long as people are talking/joking/complaining about them, they get more powerful and more feared, to a point where corporations and alliances will avoid war with them instead of actually trying to see their abilities.
Oh, and I DO hope prices go up on minerals
Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
What good is "propoganda" is the targeted enemy fails to fall prey to it?
Desensitization and a mindful eye are the outcome. I have more faith in BoB that they would not rely on simple forum tactics which would preail agasint lessers. This is ASCN we're talking about!
War Machine // War = BoB // Machine = ASCN
OOOh, I'm getting excited! I hope someone gets ample Fraps coverage of their engagements, both the wins and losses, so everyone can watch it as a movie when it's done.
I'm kind of remote from that territory these days, but this is my interpretation from afar: Not much of anything will come from this conflict.
When I first started playing +3 yrs ago, I was a member of yet-to-be fountain alliance. Before the BIG-Chimera merger even. The thing you have to remember though, is that those larger entities are composed of groups that move around, and who's memberships turn over with time. Little is really static. Alliances tend to split into groups that are well centralized and interdependent and the remainder that are more isolated and tend to migrate over time.
Groups like Xetic and ASCN and some northern groups picked up individuals and smaller groups from smaller, cleaved organizations. I always liked to think of them as second tier, corp-fermenting organizations. Interdependencies form on a small scale within the group, and those cells split off to form new corps, or get recruited by established cooperative pvp groups. ASCN has a pretty good structure for managing the turnover, for efficiently utilizing the tithes from those ex-xetic, ex-fountain, ex-anywhere npcers and marshalling all-calls for defensive or large fleet ops. I would love to see the overview of those procedures.
The [i]key[/i] corps within Band of Brothers were the typical recruit-from-the-top corps. They started out as wealthy smaller corps with necessary the budget for pvp, and institutionalized a demanding schedule for would-be members that made leadership simple. An achiever personality and wealth is hard to fake afterall, so security is pretty good. For new players to EVE, everything is about opportunity. The opportunity to pvp on viable terms tends to seem pretty rare for the typical player under one year old. The vast majority of corporations and even alliances are primarily comprised of a well-connected and functional core that is surrounded by a cloud of unaffiliated, disposable, and largely isolated additional members. When one of them obtains something like a techII bpo, they gain the economic means to experiment with pvp, and to learn everything about their ship. However, in terms of understanding group pvp, they may always remain noobs, or may simply get fed up with the lack of mobilization in their corp. Usually, it is an easy decision for people with means to flock to corps of other people of means. The wealthy and experienced have a natural tendency to become concentrated in smaller circles. This is the essence of Bob. Every game has a top guild that attracts the achiever types and power-grinders, and EVE is no exception.
I would not say that Evolution or Reikoku bring anything new to the game, or stand for any principle. They are simply a locus for wealth and power-gamers, and as such, they form a gravity well for that segment of the playerbase. At least, that was the case for a very long time. About a year or more ago, (I disremember precisely), they started bringing in more and more vassal corps. My belief is that the number of insta-wealthy people were not being produced at a rate that was keeping up with 0.0 alliance growth given that agents were suddenly pumping out megabucks for the solo individual, and that this was fueling the development of a broader number of npcing-alliances after a time. Most of these vassal corps and individuals were and are simply associates of Evol-BNC-Reikoku simply of fear of not being associated. Not because they would be afraid of fighting Bob or any other corp, but because they would no longer be part of the top guild.
If the server could handle it, it is most likely that Bob could easily weaken the weaker parts of ASCN after a time and cause them to safespot more often and mobilize less frequently and more cautiously. However, in any conflict, it is going to be the node that wins. Thus, either side will have to pursue alternative methods of waging conflict. Either espionage and theft, through proxy wars, through laying waste to allies, or by risking splitting up their forces in simultaneous attacks.
And yes, Rod_B stands for Rod Blaine of course. I've been active on these forums for a while already, and not just in the eve section either.
Anyway, I think a fair number of people like to theorize about us more then they should. People always do that based on assumptions they made or fact they were told and so on, leading to them drawing quite faulty conclusions. An example is BoB only having people with more then 30m skillpoints or something. Utter nonsense.
But this thread is not about us, and not meant for propaganda either. I'll leave the information about the current war out. If someone wants me to give you info about it then ask for it in another thread please. Or just read the Eve-o forums anyway. If you ignore anything expect the stuff I post you'll get a fair picture , I don't see any need to lie about how things are going in this war, and I get my info first hand too. Sure i'll post with a bias, but not based on lies. The same goes for those wanting to go into the morality of spying within Eve.
Anyway, the economic effects.
Like I've said before, they'll be fairly limited nowadays. There is however a difference depending on how the war goes.
BoB doesn't sell much, apart from faction loot and occasional other stuff. We also don't have to buy much other then basic minerals and other resources. And even not that many of those either.
Now, this could change if we start losing badly, but since we won't it's not likely to. So far our losses are not much higher then they are when we don't a have a war going on. That's how easy things have been for us so far. ASCN seem to think we're about to break or something, but I attribute that to delusional intelligence officers. We haven't even started so far.
On the other hand we have ASCN. ASCN already has some local issues supplying what they need. So we're going to probably see them buy more basic resources like ice products in the southern eve regions. They're hindered more seriously by hostile activity in their home space then we are. But more importantly, they've got this division between producers and fighters going on. Such a division ends up with the fighters demanding more and more stuff from the producers given enough losses. The producers will go along with that, but without the ability to gather resources as well as usual because their miners ahve been given guns to fight with, they'll be buying more stuff in southern empire.
I'd not count on rising ship prices in northern empire however, since the wars of today no longer take place there, and losing a ship no longer leads to buying a new one in some empire station. This is a war between two fully self-sufficient entities, and as such you'll only see some limited growth in demand within empire, and then only for basic resources, not finished products.
However, ASCN also supplies alot of stuff to the market, like tech2 products and for example high end minerals or moon mined materials. These supplies are likely to dry up bit by bit, untill they're totally gone and all production is steered towars internal users. That'll be when prices start rising in empire, not because of demand but because of supply, and not the prices of things needing basic minerals but the prices of high ends (maybe, a bit), and the prices of tech2.
It is too early to tell what's going to happen, and a lot of people are trying to over analyze. It is true that ASCN have lost a ton of ships, but that's really nothing unusual for them. ASCN are the largest alliance in the game, and even during "peace time" random attacks from various groups lead to a lot of losses for ASCN. As for BoB, they have destroyed a lot of ships while suffering fewer losses, again, nothing really different from the norm.
Both sides are trying to spin the conflict as something that will lead to the destruction of either BoB or ASCN. Most of that have been done on the forums, which has been filled with the usual smack talk and the like. But in reality it's just that, smack and talk. It's really not an indication of anything other than a place to have a good time when you're not playing.
There's no such thing as winning in EvE. You can only destroy, but the otherside can always build up again. And besides, what's the point of taking over everything EvE would just be another boring game.
Alliances are just names really. It's a tag that a group of people who play together have. Alliances don't really die, they simply reform and reorganize under different names. That will probably happen to the side that gets beaten really badly in this war, although I doubt either side can take over the other side's space, unless they're willing to greatly expand the number of people in their alliance.
As for my personal opinion on this whole matter? I think both sides have underestimated each other so far. But with the upcoming changes in Kali, there's really no telling what might happen. But so long as the community grows and new players get introduced into all parts of the game, EvE will be a fun place to be.
Oh and Rod, next time we meet, I'll remember to lock onto your ship and say 'hi"
I'm not fully up to date on alliance politics, though i'm not completely ignorant; i'm fully aware of BoB's reputation, but do they really live up that reputation? The only pure PVP alliance I remember that fully deserved its reputation and then some was Curse Ailliance...
hmm, that's a thought, I wonder how those 2 alliances would match up to each other. Undoubtedly atleast some BoB members were most likely ex-Curse, but what if they did go up against each other at the height of their power and reputation. Anyone care to venture a guess?
I was in CA during 2003 at the time of their "height of power".
CA was good, no doubt. They had decent enough leadership most of the time (in fleets, when Xirt was offline), and they had some good corps with top-of-the-line organisation for that time.
However, compared to current alliances in general and BoB in particular CA wouldn't stand the smallest smithering of a chance.
You simply cant compare alliances across time like that. Thegame has changed too much and alliances have grown much more organised and with way better logistics then they had back in the day. The current BoB would own the old CA within a month. Hell, even ASCN could win pruely by beating them by attrition.
As far as us and our reputation is concerned, or the supposed underestimatisation of ASCN, you'll probably not know untill a fwe months from now, when we're a bit further in this war. Most current players haven't seen real Eve wars, since there've been only one or two so far. But to say we underestimate ASCN would be false at this time. We don't underestimate them, nor do fail t plan for the long haul. That's exactly what we've planned for.
Originally posted by Rod_B As far as us and our reputation is concerned, or the supposed underestimatisation of ASCN, you'll probably not know untill a fwe months from now, when we're a bit further in this war. Most current players haven't seen real Eve wars, since there've been only one or two so far. But to say we underestimate ASCN would be false at this time. We don't underestimate them, nor do fail t plan for the long haul. That's exactly what we've planned for.
You're right on that point. There has never been a war like this one. This is the first major comflict where POS and massive stationary defenses are in place. It's no longer about just open fleet action anymore.
This war is about entering the great unknown, and with Kali coming, there will be even more uncertainity concerning how wars are to be fought and won.
It's just like WWI. All the commanders thought that with modern transportation, there would be massive battles with a lot of movement. Who would have thought that it lasted 4 years and the frontlines hardly moved an inch?
Just another thing that makes EvE online such a special game. It's so open ended, you can't really predict what's going to happen or how things could be best done.
My only worry is that some people have invested so much emotion into this war, that the result could lead to them quiting the game. That is never a good thing, as the vast community of EvE is the reason why the game can be what it is today. I have no problem with any and all tactics in game to gain an advantage. I just hope people can keep a good prespective and keep having fun.
Fight, smack, do whatever you want that is within the rules to have fun. But don't let these things get in the way. Love them or hate them, agree with them or not, EvE just isn't a great game if you don't have all the various characters and egos running around the galaxy.
Originally posted by Rod_B Eerh, we're fighting in about the southernmost region of Eve... Ok, let me enlighten you somewhat, I'll try to do it neutrally even tho I'm a longtime member of Evolution, one of the four core corporations of the BoB alliance. ASCN is a successor alliance formed by parts of the old Xetic (or XIF/XF/whatever it has been named in the two years it existed). I once was a member of one of the original four corporations to found Xetic as well waaaay back in 2003 and as swuch know something of the history of the tradityional Xetic regions (that's more or less all between Stain and Curse regions with exception of Catch region) as well. ASCN is large, they've got about 4000 characters i their alliance, with sister-alliance AXE havign another 1200 or so. Together they occupy the regions of esoteria, paragon soul, feythabolis and Impass. They've got the largest amount of outposts (player built space stations) of any alliance in Eve with about a 40% margin to the number two in that ranking (BoB and -LV-). They're well knwon for having incredible industrial power and very large fleets. If you'd have to pick the richest alliance of Eve 905 of the players would have no doubt that ASCN would be it. However, even with all the defensive advantages they have (large numbers, countless POS's protecting sovereignty of their space and the cash to afford enormous losses), they lack military leadership BADLY. Hold that thought and let's look at BoB for a minute. BoB is made up of five main corps and their industrial sister-corps. The main corps are Reikoku, BNC, Evolution, DICE and TAOSP. All of these corps are ancient and well known within Eve because of their military significance in past and present wars. If you'd be looking for veteran pvp players with a hang for large fights you'd find plenty in this alliance. BoB occupies the regions of Fountain, Delve, Querious and Period Basis. BoB is known as a highly agressive and highly mobile alliance with a heavy emphasis on military power. It has about 1500 members. BoB has destroyed or scattared other alliances in the past on several occasions and is known to be rather ruthless in war. Alot of things are said about us, and I'm not going to repeat them all, suffice to say that most of it's rubbish either way and that we don't really care anyway. Bob's weak point if I'm to name one at all might be our size. We won't grow much bigger then we are, yet 1500 people is simply not enough to populate much more space then we already hold. We have our ways of dealing with that however. Another weakness is public opinion. Our agressive and "we dont care what you think" stance has made us many enemies amongst other alliances and players (which is a situation we like, it gives you many targets). People have often theorised thata combined effort of many of these enemies could well spell our end. The first group to dare such a thing has yet to come forward however. Now, the war. This war is big because of two things. 1. Because BoB has said they would like it to be. 2. Because these are the two strongest entities in Eve. On one side you've got an alliances with the numbers and the deep pockets that has military power as it's weak point. On the other an alliance of medium size with pockets that may be just as deep but with a military that is most certainly much better led and more experienced then ASCN's. So far things have been mostly fun and build-up. At this time it's not comparable to the large wars of the past yet. However, as far as I am concerned, that's just a matter of time. Not because we have a particular dislike of ASCN or AXE (the latter we specifically don't dislike seiing how they're not unalike us), but because we're good for a long protracted exhaustive war right now, and ASCN is the most convenient and arguably the best target to choose for it.
Great summary, even more so that I haven't been able to get to the website to re-up my account lol. Had too many other game Beta invites to try out and had a long skill training so I took off for the last month and half, been out of the loop on recent war decs.
Good luck to all invovled, make sure your clone is up to date
Comments
It doesn't even have to be GM corruption, or turning a blind eye to exploitive play for it to constitute an unfair advantage. If the GM is involved as a player on a team, then anyone who plays on that team gets *instant* access to CS if something goes wrong, and gets an eyewitness who can appraise the situation and take action immediately.
Say you are forming a fleet on one side of a gate, and you get lag. If you are not with a GM, you either have to petition one, and wait, possibly far in excess of your window of opportunity. But if you are with one, then there is a GM there that can see the difficulty, and perhaps send a shout down the halls to reinforce the node. Not an exploit. Not GM corruption. Yet still it constitutes an unfair advantage.
Say you see an exploit happen. In any other case, you'll have to send a petition, and hope that the GM believes you. But if you have a GM that can actually verify the exploit when it happens, then you'll get a faster, more definitive response simply because he is involved directly with the party who sees the exploit, and can take depositions (for lack of a better term) at the scene as to how each was fitted, what happened, etc. Again, its not corruption. Its not giving an exploit a blind eye. In fact, quite the opposite. Yet it still constitutes an unfair advantage that the other side who doesn't have a GM on Ventrillo doesn't have.
Say someone does spam CTRL-Q. Say many people do. Maybe there was no command from the gang leader to do so, and such things are frowned upon in the alliance generally, but some do it out of force of habit, or do it anyway. If you get the accusation that your alliance is lagging up the node by doing that sort of thing, you have a GM there to testify that no command to CTRL-Q was given by anyone in the gang chat, or on the voice server. The alliance who doesn't have a GM has to be investigated in order to find that out, and may even suffer disciplinary sanctions while the investigation is ongoing.
So the whole issue of having CCP staff and GMs participating in things like alliances and gangs is only partly a matter of corruption. The bigger issue is the ability to cut through red tape, and the bureaucracy, and get a direct line to the people who can solve the problems. And in a zero-sum game like EVE, with as many technical problems as it has, it constitutes an unfair advantage that the other side cannot counter.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Everything else still stands though.
It doesn't even have to be GM corruption, or turning a blind eye to exploitive play for it to constitute an unfair advantage. If the GM is involved as a player on a team, then anyone who plays on that team gets *instant* access to CS if something goes wrong, and gets an eyewitness who can appraise the situation and take action immediately.
Say you are forming a fleet on one side of a gate, and you get lag. If you are not with a GM, you either have to petition one, and wait, possibly far in excess of your window of opportunity. But if you are with one, then there is a GM there that can see the difficulty, and perhaps send a shout down the halls to reinforce the node. Not an exploit. Not GM corruption. Yet still it constitutes an unfair advantage.
Say you see an exploit happen. In any other case, you'll have to send a petition, and hope that the GM believes you. But if you have a GM that can actually verify the exploit when it happens, then you'll get a faster, more definitive response simply because he is involved directly with the party who sees the exploit, and can take depositions (for lack of a better term) at the scene as to how each was fitted, what happened, etc. Again, its not corruption. Its not giving an exploit a blind eye. In fact, quite the opposite. Yet it still constitutes an unfair advantage that the other side who doesn't have a GM on Ventrillo doesn't have.
Say someone does spam CTRL-Q. Say many people do. Maybe there was no command from the gang leader to do so, and such things are frowned upon in the alliance generally, but some do it out of force of habit, or do it anyway. If you get the accusation that your alliance is lagging up the node by doing that sort of thing, you have a GM there to testify that no command to CTRL-Q was given by anyone in the gang chat, or on the voice server. The alliance who doesn't have a GM has to be investigated in order to find that out, and may even suffer disciplinary sanctions while the investigation is ongoing.
So the whole issue of having CCP staff and GMs participating in things like alliances and gangs is only partly a matter of corruption. The bigger issue is the ability to cut through red tape, and the bureaucracy, and get a direct line to the people who can solve the problems. And in a zero-sum game like EVE, with as many technical problems as it has, it constitutes an unfair advantage that the other side cannot counter.
I'm not a GM for EVE but I've been a GM for other games in the past. Unless CCP has completely lost their marbles any GM "player" is strictly forbidden from letting his fellow players know he is actually a GM.
In the game I was a GM in it was actually an actionable HR offense to let players know you were a GM if you were playing a player character. As your player you are a player. As your GM you are a GM and never are the two paths to meet. In the game I was in we even had to file a petition just like anyone else. We were NOT allowed to take action of any kind ourselves.
Dunno if CCP follows that policy but most MMO's do and I have no reason to believe that CCP would be any different. For exactly the reasons you mentioned above.
Sure there's still the fact that some red tape will get cut. But not quite to the extent of what you're stating. Using GM status to 'jump the line' actually got a couple folks fired if I recall correctly.
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
*Don't fight the funk*
Isn't it a little pathetic that Eve allows you to have a political situation reach critical mass like the war here, but lack latency and horsepower to pull off a war like this?
If blobbing or node crashes determine the success of a particular alliance's war efforts, what can these guys hang their hats on at the end of the day? Have the proven anythihg? You may be able to have 30k people logged in at once, but anymore than a couple hundred players in a sector of space, and you have a slide show...
Too bad, the ideas are in place, yet CCP can't offer you the flour to bake the cake...
Well ship prices haven't risen but named missile Tech 1 launchers are going through the roof. XR-3200's have gone up by over 1.5 million in the past 7 days. And Arbalests have gone up by almost 3 million. I noticed today when I was kitting a new ship I wanted to try out. Wound up scavenging from one I wasn't using instead of buying new gear for it.
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
You wouldn't be Rod Blaine wouldn't you
Seems like this war has reached these forums as well. It is interesting how people are so fatalistic about things in this game. No victory or defeat is final in EvE. Alliances and players will come and go, wars are won and lost. But so long as people are having fun and new players are joining the community, the cycle will just continue. Just like it is in the real world.
This war between ASCN and BoB is just another example of what makes the game so great.
It is unfortunate that a few people are taking it way too seriously than it should be. There has been a ton of smack from both sides and the so called "neutral observers". But that's expected from a PvP intensive game, and to be honest, I don't think it's a fair reflection of who these people really are. Still I do wish some of those people would tone it back just a bit. It makes EvE look like CS. So what if you loose a few ships or even a few stations? EvE would be boring if there wasn't conflict. The greatest achievement in EvE isn't building an empire, it's loosing it all and then getting it all back.
There are always more challenges to meet. I wish ASCN and BoB all the luck and fun in this conflict.
Well said Gamrag!
I do not post often on the EVE-O forums and during a "time of war" I'll exhibit extra care to avoid "flame" and "troll" threads.
BoB and ASCN are going to show several things to the community, the industry and CCP: To the players, we'll see the Risk vs the Reward. The community might invision the scope and calibre of the game. CCP will identify thier current infrastructure is inept in balancing server load and lacks the ability to provide an uninterupted experiance.
I've got my ISK riding on ASCN. I think BoB will likely kick more ass battle-for-battle but in the end ASCN will come out on top.
One interesting point is the level of deception through alternate means outside of the scope of the EVE client that's being utilized to gain an upper hand. My belief is that using an alt to infiltrate a corp in an opposing alliance just to gain access to private forums and a private Teamspeak server with the full intent of disruption is questionable if not "cheating".
I'm sure once the VoIP features become implimented in EVE that my position, and those using questionable tactics (I want to call it "exploits"), would deffintely change. At least using an ingame client side VoIP would then be part of the game thus part of the viable options to disrupt your opponets. (if you have to utillize a 3rd party program of any scope to gain an advantage agasint your advesaries I think there's a problem even if said program is accepted and utilized by the core of the players involved.)
BoB and ASCN at war
well I love wars becouse when its a war all the mineral prices raise and
ship prices going high and I earn shitloads of isk
Guides & Trials for EvE Online:
Oh, and I DO hope prices go up on minerals
Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
Aye!
What good is "propoganda" is the targeted enemy fails to fall prey to it?
Desensitization and a mindful eye are the outcome. I have more faith in BoB that they would not rely on simple forum tactics which would preail agasint lessers. This is ASCN we're talking about!
War Machine // War = BoB // Machine = ASCN
OOOh, I'm getting excited! I hope someone gets ample Fraps coverage of their engagements, both the wins and losses, so everyone can watch it as a movie when it's done.
When I first started playing +3 yrs ago, I was a member of yet-to-be fountain alliance. Before the BIG-Chimera merger even. The thing you have to remember though, is that those larger entities are composed of groups that move around, and who's memberships turn over with time. Little is really static. Alliances tend to split into groups that are well centralized and interdependent and the remainder that are more isolated and tend to migrate over time.
Groups like Xetic and ASCN and some northern groups picked up individuals and smaller groups from smaller, cleaved organizations. I always liked to think of them as second tier, corp-fermenting organizations. Interdependencies form on a small scale within the group, and those cells split off to form new corps, or get recruited by established cooperative pvp groups. ASCN has a pretty good structure for managing the turnover, for efficiently utilizing the tithes from those ex-xetic, ex-fountain, ex-anywhere npcers and marshalling all-calls for defensive or large fleet ops. I would love to see the overview of those procedures.
The [i]key[/i] corps within Band of Brothers were the typical recruit-from-the-top corps. They started out as wealthy smaller corps with necessary the budget for pvp, and institutionalized a demanding schedule for would-be members that made leadership simple. An achiever personality and wealth is hard to fake afterall, so security is pretty good. For new players to EVE, everything is about opportunity. The opportunity to pvp on viable terms tends to seem pretty rare for the typical player under one year old. The vast majority of corporations and even alliances are primarily comprised of a well-connected and functional core that is surrounded by a cloud of unaffiliated, disposable, and largely isolated additional members. When one of them obtains something like a techII bpo, they gain the economic means to experiment with pvp, and to learn everything about their ship. However, in terms of understanding group pvp, they may always remain noobs, or may simply get fed up with the lack of mobilization in their corp. Usually, it is an easy decision for people with means to flock to corps of other people of means. The wealthy and experienced have a natural tendency to become concentrated in smaller circles. This is the essence of Bob. Every game has a top guild that attracts the achiever types and power-grinders, and EVE is no exception.
I would not say that Evolution or Reikoku bring anything new to the game, or stand for any principle. They are simply a locus for wealth and power-gamers, and as such, they form a gravity well for that segment of the playerbase. At least, that was the case for a very long time. About a year or more ago, (I disremember precisely), they started bringing in more and more vassal corps. My belief is that the number of insta-wealthy people were not being produced at a rate that was keeping up with 0.0 alliance growth given that agents were suddenly pumping out megabucks for the solo individual, and that this was fueling the development of a broader number of npcing-alliances after a time. Most of these vassal corps and individuals were and are simply associates of Evol-BNC-Reikoku simply of fear of not being associated. Not because they would be afraid of fighting Bob or any other corp, but because they would no longer be part of the top guild.
If the server could handle it, it is most likely that Bob could easily weaken the weaker parts of ASCN after a time and cause them to safespot more often and mobilize less frequently and more cautiously. However, in any conflict, it is going to be the node that wins. Thus, either side will have to pursue alternative methods of waging conflict. Either espionage and theft, through proxy wars, through laying waste to allies, or by risking splitting up their forces in simultaneous attacks.
Nice reacstions.
And yes, Rod_B stands for Rod Blaine of course. I've been active on these forums for a while already, and not just in the eve section either.
Anyway, I think a fair number of people like to theorize about us more then they should. People always do that based on assumptions they made or fact they were told and so on, leading to them drawing quite faulty conclusions. An example is BoB only having people with more then 30m skillpoints or something. Utter nonsense.
But this thread is not about us, and not meant for propaganda either. I'll leave the information about the current war out. If someone wants me to give you info about it then ask for it in another thread please. Or just read the Eve-o forums anyway. If you ignore anything expect the stuff I post you'll get a fair picture
, I don't see any need to lie about how things are going in this war, and I get my info first hand too. Sure i'll post with a bias, but not based on lies. The same goes for those wanting to go into the morality of spying within Eve.
Anyway, the economic effects.
Like I've said before, they'll be fairly limited nowadays. There is however a difference depending on how the war goes.
BoB doesn't sell much, apart from faction loot and occasional other stuff. We also don't have to buy much other then basic minerals and other resources. And even not that many of those either.
Now, this could change if we start losing badly, but since we won't it's not likely to. So far our losses are not much higher then they are when we don't a have a war going on. That's how easy things have been for us so far. ASCN seem to think we're about to break or something, but I attribute that to delusional intelligence officers. We haven't even started so far.
On the other hand we have ASCN. ASCN already has some local issues supplying what they need. So we're going to probably see them buy more basic resources like ice products in the southern eve regions. They're hindered more seriously by hostile activity in their home space then we are. But more importantly, they've got this division between producers and fighters going on. Such a division ends up with the fighters demanding more and more stuff from the producers given enough losses. The producers will go along with that, but without the ability to gather resources as well as usual because their miners ahve been given guns to fight with, they'll be buying more stuff in southern empire.
I'd not count on rising ship prices in northern empire however, since the wars of today no longer take place there, and losing a ship no longer leads to buying a new one in some empire station. This is a war between two fully self-sufficient entities, and as such you'll only see some limited growth in demand within empire, and then only for basic resources, not finished products.
However, ASCN also supplies alot of stuff to the market, like tech2 products and for example high end minerals or moon mined materials. These supplies are likely to dry up bit by bit, untill they're totally gone and all production is steered towars internal users. That'll be when prices start rising in empire, not because of demand but because of supply, and not the prices of things needing basic minerals but the prices of high ends (maybe, a bit), and the prices of tech2.
You're correct in a lot of ways lowrads.
It is too early to tell what's going to happen, and a lot of people are trying to over analyze. It is true that ASCN have lost a ton of ships, but that's really nothing unusual for them. ASCN are the largest alliance in the game, and even during "peace time" random attacks from various groups lead to a lot of losses for ASCN. As for BoB, they have destroyed a lot of ships while suffering fewer losses, again, nothing really different from the norm.
Both sides are trying to spin the conflict as something that will lead to the destruction of either BoB or ASCN. Most of that have been done on the forums, which has been filled with the usual smack talk and the like. But in reality it's just that, smack and talk. It's really not an indication of anything other than a place to have a good time when you're not playing.
There's no such thing as winning in EvE. You can only destroy, but the otherside can always build up again. And besides, what's the point of taking over everything
Alliances are just names really. It's a tag that a group of people who play together have. Alliances don't really die, they simply reform and reorganize under different names. That will probably happen to the side that gets beaten really badly in this war, although I doubt either side can take over the other side's space, unless they're willing to greatly expand the number of people in their alliance.
As for my personal opinion on this whole matter? I think both sides have underestimated each other so far. But with the upcoming changes in Kali, there's really no telling what might happen. But so long as the community grows and new players get introduced into all parts of the game, EvE will be a fun place to be.
Oh and Rod, next time we meet, I'll remember to lock onto your ship and say 'hi"
hmm, that's a thought, I wonder how those 2 alliances would match up to each other. Undoubtedly atleast some BoB members were most likely ex-Curse, but what if they did go up against each other at the height of their power and reputation. Anyone care to venture a guess?
I was in CA during 2003 at the time of their "height of power".
CA was good, no doubt. They had decent enough leadership most of the time (in fleets, when Xirt was offline), and they had some good corps with top-of-the-line organisation for that time.
However, compared to current alliances in general and BoB in particular CA wouldn't stand the smallest smithering of a chance.
You simply cant compare alliances across time like that. Thegame has changed too much and alliances have grown much more organised and with way better logistics then they had back in the day. The current BoB would own the old CA within a month. Hell, even ASCN could win pruely by beating them by attrition.
As far as us and our reputation is concerned, or the supposed underestimatisation of ASCN, you'll probably not know untill a fwe months from now, when we're a bit further in this war. Most current players haven't seen real Eve wars, since there've been only one or two so far. But to say we underestimate ASCN would be false at this time. We don't underestimate them, nor do fail t plan for the long haul. That's exactly what we've planned for.
This war is about entering the great unknown, and with Kali coming, there will be even more uncertainity concerning how wars are to be fought and won.
It's just like WWI. All the commanders thought that with modern transportation, there would be massive battles with a lot of movement. Who would have thought that it lasted 4 years and the frontlines hardly moved an inch?
Just another thing that makes EvE online such a special game. It's so open ended, you can't really predict what's going to happen or how things could be best done.
My only worry is that some people have invested so much emotion into this war, that the result could lead to them quiting the game. That is never a good thing, as the vast community of EvE is the reason why the game can be what it is today. I have no problem with any and all tactics in game to gain an advantage. I just hope people can keep a good prespective and keep having fun.
Fight, smack, do whatever you want that is within the rules to have fun. But don't let these things get in the way. Love them or hate them, agree with them or not, EvE just isn't a great game if you don't have all the various characters and egos running around the galaxy.
Good luck to all invovled, make sure your clone is up to date