More Than 2,500 Ships Clash in Asakai January 27, 2013
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, EVE Online.Tags: CFC, TEST, Titan
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And I missed it.
I was eating dinner when the op got called, but my pal Gaff was along for the ride and gave me some updates as the evening progressed.
A snapsnot (broken out by alliances) showed as many as 2,667 players in the low sec system of Asakai, which sits in the Black Rise region of Caldari space. Gaff linked me this picture of the operation, which seemed to be going around. (More battle images here.)
Supercaps at Asakai
Of course, so many players in a single system was a bit of a change. The system stats from DOTLAN show a big spike in everything but NPC kills.
Jumps and Kills
This is another example of both the strength and weakness in EVE Online.
The game let more than 2,500 players converge on a single system and engage in battle.
The game was also bogged down with that unexpected load to the point that the time dilation feature, which slows everything down on the impacted node so the servers can keep up with the action , was itself not enough to keep things going slowly but smoothly. Extra lag, disconnects, and problems loading the grid were reported. And this affected people not in the system but in systems on the same node, which probably covers the whole of Black Rise.
As is often the case, news of such a big even spread quickly, and both The Mittani and EVE News 24 had live reporting about the battle in progress, while a thread about the battle made it to the top of posts on Reddit. (Though TEST is from Reddit, so go figure.) Included in the reporting was a count of over 3,000 ships in system at the very peak of the battle.
Of course, this all comes immediately after a week of escalating tensions between TEST and Goonswarm over a long simmering conflict between TEST and Goonswarm ally and CFC member Fatal Ascension. While a devastating sovereignty war was averted, there was a mutual reset between the two sides and shooting has been encouraged. TEST appears to have put the FA angle into their post battle propaganda.
Are FA Really Worth It?
The Mittani himself was a little more subdued about the battle results.
Looks like ~44 dreads, 3 Titans, 5 Supercarriers total lost. :welp: #tweetfleet—
The Mittani (@TheMittani) January 27, 2013
And now the post-battle analysis is under way, and no doubt will include everything from portents of doom for the Goons, to calls of fakery, to simple jibes at Goon FC Dabigredboat, to awe at the simple fact that such a huge battle even took place, to the ongoing discussion about whether or not null sec is dead.
Because, of course, this is EVE Online, where just because the shooting is over doesn’t mean the battle is done.
Addendum: And because it is EVE, it makes the mainstream media. Gotta love this game.
Addendum 2: Now CCP has a Dev Blog about the battle.
Addendum 3: Okay, two Dev Blogs about the battle.
What Happened to the War Fever? January 24, 2013
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, EVE Online.Tags: CFC, Duck Soup, Null Sec, TEST
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We’re going to war.
This is a fact we can’t ignore.
We’re going to war.
In case you hadn’t heard before,
I think they think we’re going to war.
We’re going to war.
I think they think we’re going to war.
We’re going to war.
We’re going to war.
We’re going to war!The War Song, from Duck Soup
Ever since I read the Montolio Madness CEO Update it has seemed like we were headed to war.
And yet the whole thing has also had an air of the absurd about it as well. I quoted Duck Soup at the top of this post because it keeps coming to mind. (If you haven’t seen it, find some time. It may be the finest of the Marx Brothers movies.)
The only stumbling block in my mind is trying to actually pick the cast for this little bit of space theater. I just can’t quite do that the way Jester does.
Normally I would assume The Mittani in the role of Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho), since he gets all the best lines. However it really seemed that Montolio was playing that role, and the dialog certainly fit. This is practically a summary of his response to the ongoing imbroglio with Fatal Ascension.
Forget? You ask me to forget? A Firefly never forgets! Why, my ancestors would rise from their graves, and I’d only have to bury them again. Nothing doing.
Then there is the point with negotiations on the brink where Montolio seems deliberately provocative.
Montolio strikes The Mittani
And I guess the wily Ambassador Trentino does fit the personality of The Mittani more so. Plus, from what I hear, this is a pretty accurate representation of TEST alliance meetings.
Directors play, FCs dance
Anyway, it looked like two of the biggest factions in the game were headed for a serious round of space violence.
Stock Footage of Space Violence
And then the whole thing blew over.
Shadoo from Pandemic Legion, who I guess is Mrs. Teasdale attempting to broker peace in the Duck Soup metaphor, a mental image that cannot be making any of us happy at this point, reportedly “talked Montolio off the ledge” and defused the situation.
There will not be a wholesale clash, complete with bloody, prolonged sov grind, between the two sides, much to the dismay of those looking for such a spectacle. Instead, it seems that were back to this, or so some say.
Living the Technetium Dream
Others say that the mechanics of the game itself stymied the war.
Not that I wasn’t looking forward to a war. I was a bit caught up in the war fever myself. I have been training up the skills for our new Tech Fleet doctrine, which relies on armor rather than shield tanking. Of course, I am maxed out on all shield related skills, but have only halfheartedly gone after armor skills in the past, so my training path is clear for the moment.
And then a bloody conflict was avoided.
But there is still hope. This came over Jabber last night while I was online.
If you missed the earlier broadcasts, both GSF and TNT have reset Test Alliance Please Ignore. This is a mutual reset and members are permitted to shoot members of TEST. Expect to see TEST sending fleets to Deklein. In fact, there may be one in VFK area right now.
And, sure enough, TEST had been reset.
Standings with TEST- Needs some bounty
They have only been reset to neutral, which means if we run into them in space, we shoot them. We will see if that results in any battles. There was a Homeland Defense call last night, but by the time I got on, there was nobody left to shoot… assuming there had been anybody in the first place.
Time will tell with the great war that wasn’t.
The Hot Spot in New Eden August 7, 2012
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, EVE Online.Tags: 49-U6U, Delve War, TEST
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I haven’t seen a big red spot on the map like that since Burn Jita. (Though Jita’s was bigger.)
TEST and Pandemic Legion have their own war going on in the south now, while we have our own in the north. We were all at 49-U6U less than a month ago. Now there has been not just one, but two battles for this key system in Querious, sitting as it does on the border with Catch.
TEST still holds it, but it is clearly being contested for now.
The War in Delve Ends… For Some of Us July 20, 2012
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, EVE Online.Tags: Delve War, Null Sec, TEST
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I didn’t lose my job. It is still there. Just when I go to the office now, there is somebody else doing it.
-Some comic in the 80s
There is still a war going on in Delve against the remains of SoCo. Just when I go there now, somebody else is fighting it.
The news last night was that TEST asked its friends from the north to… well… go back to the north.
Endie, the chief spokesman for Goonswarm, a man with a gift for turning a phrase, put up a post reviewing the relationship between Goonswarm and TEST and how TEST, now the biggest holder of sovereignty in the game, wants to stand on its own two feet. Look at all those systems TEST now owns.
How TEST stands compared to other alliances.
Alliance with 100 or more systems
This 150% jump in sovereignty came about after TEST blew the Horn of Gondor and brought down the legions of the north to drive SoCo out of Delve and Querious. (And, effectively, Period Basis.)
And we came. We came and we did our very special blob-tastic thing with relish and enthusiasm and blatant disregard for losses, driving the enemy before us in despair and causing them dock up and decline battle more often than not.
But now that we have accomplished that particular mission, TEST would like to take over. They would like to play in their new domain, tend their garden, have good fights, and generally not have our Hodor fleet op style scaring off all of the game in their new preserve.
As Endie put it, “The Boatman… has no “medium” setting.”
TEST is not ungrateful. They have their own public statement, posted by DurrHurrDurr, that also reviews the history of their relationship with Goonswarm. (This is one of those great things about EVE, history is held close, cherished and remembered. It isn’t something that falls away with new expansions or the long wait in between them.)
We will secure our legacy. We’ll start our own foreverwar with the mouthbreathing peasants of the South and the cockroaches of -A-. We’ll start our own family with our Honey Badger bros, and though this means we might spend more time with our waifu PL and adorable little children 99 and Tasha (now known as Tribal Band) we will not forget the lessons and support given to us by our GSF brethren. Though she might fret from afar and worry herself sick about our future, Mother Goon understands that this is something we need to do.
And so we are done, for now, in Delve.
There is, naturally, some disappointment at this turn of events. I count myself among those letting out a wistful sigh at the thought of all those potential battles we will be missing.
Like others, I was looking forward to pushing operations into Catch in the hope that -A- would put up a fight to defend those systems in a way that they failed to do in Delve and Querilous. I like fleet battles and going on operations to take systems or save towers. I like to be part of a mission with a purpose beyond getting a few kills. (Though I do love me some kills… or at least enough to demonstrate I was there.) I would have gladly gone along with an epic, night after night meatgrinder operational tempo, win or lose.
But according to The Mittani, who apparently shopped the region around to both friend and foe, nobody would want to take Catch off our hands and live there if we conquered it. Something about never being able to get the old -A- smell out of the place. And we are not going to take Catch simply to hand it back.
So it is back to the north. Back to occasional roams and gate camps. Back to the rare moments of excitement when a homeland defense fleet is called or one of the OTEC techmoons needs to be defended. (Though we’ll see how that cartel holds up with the planned changes.) Back to ratting and mining.
I am, however, keeping a jump clone and the ships I purchased down in Delve in an NPC station. This is TEST we’re talking about. There is a reason they feel they have something to prove.
In the mean time, things have been awfully quiet in Jita, haven’t they?
