Eve Online wages largest war in its 10 year history

http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/28/5352774/eve-online-wages-largest-battle-in-its-10-year-history

by danso • 12 years ago

360 178 12 years ago

shultays• 12 years ago

An exact real-life currency figure of the in-game damage is not currently cemented, but unconfirmed estimates put the amount at more than $200,000

Always wondered how much virtual money generated during a day and what is estimation for real $$. What percent of that $200k is real money?

fabian2k• 12 years ago

I don't think CCP publishes any hard data on this, they keep information like the exact number of subscribers and the number of PLEX sold secret.

The real money values always thrown around in every article about a big battle in EVE are also rather misleading as most of the ships were not paid for with real money in my estimation. The big alliances have huge incomes from ingame sources from which they finance the big expensive ships like Titans and the ship replacement programs for the smaller ships for their members.

You also can't convert the EVE ingame money (ISK) into real money, or at least not in any CCP-sanctioned way.

Cthulhu_7• 12 years ago

IIRC they did publish subscribed player statistics a while ago, I think the number then was around 500.000. Usually there's around 50.000 players online during my playing hours.

As for the conversion, whether it comes from real money or not is debatable, but given that PLEX is pretty much the measure for real world vs ISK value, a conversion is easily made - just like for example Bitcoin is often converted to USD in articles.

alcari• 12 years ago

The game's subscription model is actually implemented in such a way that you can have an item (a "Pilot's License Extension", PLEX) that represents a month of account time. PLEX can then be bought and sold by players in-game, at whatever price they're willing to agree to. There's a fairly active market for them, so a USD -> ISK (ingame currency) conversion ratio can be calculated.

Of course, there's no (officially sanctioned) way to convert PLEX back into USD, so such comparisons speak more to CCP's profits than anything else.

Zolomon• 12 years ago

There is, almost at least[1]. You can go to their conventions in Las Vegas by paying with PLEX.

"Regular price is $200 but if you have 15 PLEX..."

[1] http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/eve-vegas-2013...

dccoolgai• 12 years ago

When I played EVE, I don't remember being directly affected by these things...I never joined an alliance, just sort of hung out in isolated systems and explored wormholes and tried not to bump into too many people..it was great fun.

davidw• 12 years ago

It actually looks like a pretty cool game - the description reminds me of Elite brought up to today's standards. I can't help but think of this, though:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/online_gaming

mattmanser3• 12 years ago

It's nothing like elite.

The combat involved in this battle is sorting a list by name, double clicking a square and then pressing F1. Once that square disappears, double click another square and then press F1.

Oh, I forgot, you might align your camera in a direction of a different square, which represents a local planet, and double click.

Occasionally, and especially if your name starts with an a, the whole screen will start flashing indicating you're the square the enemy is targeting. Then, unless you have spent an extremely unhealthy amount of time playing the game and are in a titan, you will die instantly.

streetnigga4• 12 years ago

Always face your exit. Hauling tactics. :)

JonnieCache2• 12 years ago

I've heard it described as excel with a 3D engine bolted on the front of it.

Maybe one could market a tool that turns mundane corporate data entry into an exciting battle for galactic domination, and make your white collar peon employees battle each other mercilessly to increase shareholder value. If you die in the game, you get fired.

EDIT: actually, please don't do that. unless you do this first: http://www.richardkmorgan.com/novels/market-forces/

Cthulhu_7• 12 years ago

Large fleet battles in a nutshell, yeah. That's the downside of allowing >2000-man fights, both the server and the clients have a lot of trouble displaying all of it, and an up-close view is pretty much useless. I wouldn't be surprised if CCP introduces a 'headless' client that just shows the overview without the 3D view and the brackets overlays for instances like this.

lotsofcows• 12 years ago

Depends how you play it. I played for a couple of years just doing the missions and a bit of trading. My "multi-player" was occasionally chatting to other people in-system. No corp, no ISK, no spreadsheets (apart from trading - very similar to Elite), no lag. Eventually stopped when the missions ramped up too quickly - you were supposed to complete them with other people.

meowface3• 12 years ago

Yep, that's EVE's biggest weakness. It's a well-designed game, and the player interactions, politics, and general sandbox gameplay are fantastic, but the combat is absolutely terrible and unfathomably boring.

There are actually some games out there that have EVE's sandbox features, but with combat that takes significant skill (usually in the style of a first-person shooter/slasher). Unfortunately, few of them have become very popular due to poor funding and the inclination of the general public to avoid very "hardcore" games.

antihero2• 12 years ago

You're forgetting the singsongs and guitar playing on TeamSpeak. But other than that, spot on!

I was part of the BoB Goonswarm war, back when we were fucking up Lotka Volterra. It must have been what, 5-6 years ago now?

adamgray2• 12 years ago

That's not exactly true.

As a titan pilot, there is more to do than just clicking broadcasts / sorting your overview / aligning. That's the kind of stuff that happens when everything is going well or you are shooting an inanimate object. As a titan pilot on the losing side last night, there was a lot of refitting, repositioning, and co-ordination. Fleet and sub-channel commanders are constantly relaying information over Skype or mumble channels. I personally spent a lot of time trying to get out of bubbles once the call was made to try to extract if possible. This was after two hours of staring at a black screen, praying that my ship wasn't dying without a chance of me fighting back.

There is also an incredible amount of micro that one can do in small gang or solo PvP, but that kind of stuff doesn't make for fancy headlines.

lutorm• 12 years ago

I thought it sounded interesting so I tried it and came away with exactly the same conclusion. Like another one of these click-click-click games only you look out a spaceship instead of looking down on a bunch of dwarves or whatever. It didn't do it for me at all.

Associat0r• 12 years ago

There is already a modern Elite called "Elite: Dangerous" currently in alpha phase.

http://elite.frontier.co.uk

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Elite:_Dangerous_FAQ

And Eve is nothing like Elite.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Elite:_Dangerous_FAQ#W...

goatforce5• 12 years ago

Fun trivia: David Braben, co-author of Elite, is one of the founding trustees of Raspberry Pi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Braben

streetnigga4• 12 years ago

Jita my dear, I miss you.

There was a period were some alliance set siege to the gates in. System time was slowed to the extreme.

Heavyweight traders dropped out, I ran my Minmatar craft about making enough coin to pay for several PLEX. After the siege profit margins slimmed back to their normal percentages.

Lovely game.

misnome• 12 years ago

I played EVE for a while; actually as part of one of these giant corporations. I'm not sure how fun it'd be without being in one, as they tend to insure you against battle loss and it takes long enough to grind the space-mining-simulator even with their support.

The other thing I remember is that these "Battles" were extremely frustrating, and very long lag-minigames. e.g. get instruction over teamspeak, everyone targets a ship and if you are lucky within the next three minutes your UI will respond and fire a shot before you randomly got targeted and exploded instantly (this was server lag, as the client would run reasonably smoothly). Even giving CCP advanced warning about where we expected to have a battle they said there was "nothing that could be done" and basically refused to acknowledge that there was a problem.

That, plus the fact that living in the UK generally meant operations were extremely late nights, meant I dropped it.

streetnigga4• 12 years ago

I used to play, maintained being independent up until I got my blockade runner and some game time, then backed off to do life things. I never really did get into the mining since the end result would having to be to trade, so I put focus on the market and finding a niche as a middle-man in one place or another.

For what it is, it is a well developed community a cut above say, Call of Duty. Or at the very least far more advanced at scamming.

kmfrk• 12 years ago

In slightly related news, $37.5M has been raised in pledges for a space simulator that still has yet to be released: https://robertsspaceindustries.com.

There has to be something about space that makes people toss money at videogames.

aaronem3• 12 years ago

EVE Online and Star Citizen both happen in space, but they're not a lot alike aside from that; the former is a point-and-click tactics 'n strategy simulator where a "skill" is something your character eventually levels up and becomes able to do whether you've been playing the game or not, and the latter is (will be) a first-person joystick-and-throttle space flight simulator in which things like combat and trading depend on the skill of the actual player, rather than an updated modern equivalent of rolling a d20 to see if you can beat a number on your character sheet.

Also of note is that Star Citizen is helmed by the same person who was the driving force behind Wing Commander, which all of us space combat sim aficionados remember fondly as the game which got us into the hobby -- a hobby which has been experiencing a severe dearth of new titles for most of a decade, now, more or less. Given all that, it's not terribly surprising what happened when Chris Roberts showed us a pre-alpha video of the game we've been dreaming of playing for most of our lives and said "Here's the game I want to build. How much is it worth to you to be able to play it?"

(Sources: I've had friends who played EVE Online, and investigated the game fairly thoroughly a while back with an eye toward possibly getting into it; I've donated $140 toward Star Citizen so far, and will probably buy another ship or two before launch.)

e12e• 12 years ago

In addition to Star Citizen, also check out the new Elite by David Braben:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-danger...

(Didn't realize he was also a co-founder of the raspberry pi foundation till just now)

jff4• 12 years ago

Keep pouring money into that hole!

JesseObrien• 12 years ago

There has to be something about space that makes people toss money at videogames.

Which is a damn travesty when people won't throw money at space in real-life. Other than a few huge backers (Musk, Branson) that have loads of money to hinge on this stuff, no one seems to care or pay attention.

untog• 12 years ago

Well, that $37.5m can create a huge online world. It could probably create a couple of rocket components in the real world.

trentmb2• 12 years ago

Who's gonna let me fly in space for $10/mo?

Qworg5• 12 years ago

I miss EVE but it is all consuming, especially when you're part of a great alliance/corp.

As an member of Goonfleet/Goonswarm, I ran the logistics for the Battle of XZH, where a scrappy group of upstarts from Syndicate waged a weeks long insurgency against a better funded, better equipped force.

We won, at least until they "bought out" the system underneath us, through superior numbers, tactics and logistics. We had our turn around time from death to back on the front (fully refunded and refitted) down to less than 6 minutes. We cycled several thousand ships an hour into the meat grinder.

We kept "Ol' Ironsides", one of our space stations, up via hundreds of shield repairing cruisers (Ospreys) and a game mechanic we didn't fully understand yet, but would soon learn to exploit (moving the zone boundary).

Anyways, I miss EVE, but it is a second full time job at the top level, and I've got other things to do. I'm glad it is still generating epic battles. :)

nyrina• 12 years ago

I think it's amazing that it has kept growing more and more hardcore. I have the impression that if I started out as a complete newb now in EVE, there would be no way for me to get up to speed and be one of the big guys, running a titan(?)

It's somewhat the opposite with WoW, that it's been consistently dumped down since Vanilla. I've been playing for all 10 years, thoroughly enjoyed all of it (although some expansions were better than others) and the time I had to spend to grind flasks and potions for vanilla Naxx was about 10 hours of killing lowly mobs, grinding away, just to be able to afford 5-6 flasks, which would last me through a raid night. That's 16 hours for 1 night of playing. And we raided every night.

Now, I have a job, I'm still raiding at the highest level, yet I can log in, knowing my character is already fully decked and ready to go, the same second the raid starts. I have to spend about 30 minutes each week, just getting stuff for the remaining time.

It suits me perfectly, due to having a job and a social life (With the people I raid hardcore with normally, so our schedules match), but I do sometimes miss the sense of accomplishment you would get from pushing something for several months, like in the start/middle TBC and vanilla days.

I'm happy that EVE is still able to have such an environment, for the people that wants that.

Cthulhu_7• 12 years ago

I'd be inclined to believe you'd be more likely to end up flying a Titan if you were to invest the training time into it, given that the larger corporations have hundreds, if not thousands of Titans lying around. Your WoW comparison is apt in that respect, Titans aren't exactly commonplace, but there's plenty more of those around than there were 'back in the day'.

somnium_sn• 12 years ago

I think there is a huge misconception of how eve works. It's not really necessary to fly one of the big ships nor train them. But then I started 2 years ago and have 2 super carriers and a titan. It's about getting into the right corporations find the right source of ISK and play the game the way you want it. If you want to fly a titan, you can do it within two years (or less) if you are smart about it.

However what makes EVE every unique is that a new player is valuable as a 10 year old veteran if they are willing to learn. A small ship can hold a carrier or super carrier in place till reinforcements arrive. It takes you 2 weeks to train into that. Hauling for your corporation in a 1 months old character can be as valuable as having a 100million skillpoint character. It's a sandbox after all and only you decide which route you want to go and how mcuh time you want to spend doing it.

rickr• 12 years ago

When I played Eve I never really felt the need to 'level up'. The learning curve was big enough that just farming money, and running an interceptor was fun enough for me - even after I had bigger ships.

The game really is a sandbox.

bsamuels• 12 years ago

When it comes to recommending people to EVE, the following rule of thumb has been effective: If you enjoyed playing Dwarf Fortress, you'll like EVE Online.

@That one other guy: When most people want to fly a titan, they don't bother training a character and just buy a titan pilot on the sanctioned character trading forum, so training time is rarely an issue for experienced pilots.

hannesfostie2• 12 years ago

It's easy to think that EVE is not worth playing unless you already have been playing for years, or that it's only worth doing so at the highest level. Though if you dig a bit deeper you'll see there's much more to the game than that.

Sure, there's the steep learning curve to beat. But once you get the sandbox concept and realize you can make a dent in the universe, however small, you can start to have some fun. Find likeminded players, and see what suits your playstyle. Be realistic about what you can achieve (train frigates and cruisers if you're starting out, not battleships) and just have fun. If you end up lucky (or work hard, of course) you could buy characters from other players, or just keep increasing your skills.

What attracts me is that the upkeep is minimal, and yet it does allow me to spend hours on end with people I enjoy talking to. Play more, earn more. Play less, no big deal.

I've never been a gamer in the sense that I play a lot of games. The games I've played for longer than about a month (however casual or hardcore) I can count on 2 hands, if not one. But those games, I've played for months if not years on end. (Counter-Strike for 7 years, EVE for 4ish, WoW for 2-3)

I haven't really gamed ever since graduating college a good 4 years ago, but I did stumble back into EVE after a 5+ year break. Having fun once again, and that's what counts.

alex_c2• 12 years ago

I have the impression that if I started out as a complete newb now in EVE, there would be no way for me to get up to speed and be one of the big guys, running a titan(?)

That's the beauty of Eve - everything is for sale, including pilots, ships, loyalty, and power. Grinding won't get you anywhere. Being one of the big guys is a reflection of one's ability to navigate the social and power structures in Eve more than anything else - a relative newbie starting from scratch can climb the ranks much faster than someone who's been playing for years but lacks the right metagame skills. You're probably right that you'd be unlikely to be one of the big guys, but that's more because of the time commitment than because everyone else has a big head start.

cellover• 12 years ago

I started playing 2 months ago and enjoyed every second of it. After a very dense playtime for the first 45 days (16'000 minutes / 45 days = 5.9 hours a day average), I started to settle a little bit, realizing my social life and mental health was slowly drifting towards complete dedication...

I keep talking with complete strangers that told me even after years of playing they were still discovering news things, tricks or kinds of gameplay.

I guess for newbies you need the patience and dedication to really have a grasp at the game, but even after intense gaming for 70 days I know probably very little about it; and for experienced players you need ways to renew the pleasure, change the type of gameplay you practice, go from nullsec to hisec, challenge yourself with crazy ideas and so on.

Youtube channels of JonnyPew (https://www.youtube.com/user/JonnyPew) and Scott Manley (https://www.youtube.com/user/szyzyg) were very inspiring in that sense.

Ps: I have a 40 hours / week job.

apenney• 12 years ago

I miss Ol' Ironsides, the best Planet 6 Moon 4 POS ever.

hahainternet• 12 years ago

At least you know the only named system in syndicate.

deeviant• 12 years ago

U geiv missel?

warmwaffles• 12 years ago

Theta squad was the best squad.

edraferi• 12 years ago

I love that the war "started by accident," just like so many real conflicts. I'm not to familiar with EVE, but it sounds like the game glitched and forgot who owned a key area, which people are now scrambling to claim. is that accurate? if so, will the developer make any kind of restitution to the faction that list the territory due to the error?

lflux• 12 years ago

The sovereignty claim (who controls a solar system and it's station) generates an in-game bill that needs to be paid by the corporation owning the system. In this case a Pandemic Legion holding corp in Nulli Secunda held the system. Enough money wasn't in the right wallet division, or the auto-pay glitched, and when the bill came due their claim dropped.

When sovereignty drops like that, it's free game to claim the system and station, generating a free for all frenzy. In this case it was Pandemic Legion's staging system with a good deal of their forward staged assets stuck in the station that they can't access until they retake the system and station.

Honest mistake or glitch, who knows. The corp CEO is claiming on reddit that it was a bug and petitioned it to the game developer CCP to have the sovereignty rolled back, but it's kinda hard to tell what's truth or just PR spin. CCP doesn't roll back losses like this often (I think it has happened like once or twice that they've rolled back sov)

redacted• 12 years ago

From what I can gather it was no glitch, just someone forgot to pay rent for the station which let anyone claim it.

motdiem• 12 years ago

Related: this episode of TLDR "RIP Vile Rat" has some tidbits on the diplomatic system in EVE, and interviews with the Goonswarm leader.

http://www.onthemedia.org/story/tldr-11-rip-vile-rat/

YokoZar• 12 years ago

I do wonder to what extent the massive outbreak of war can be blamed on Eve losing its top behind-the-scenes diplomat.

streetnigga4• 12 years ago

Eve Online is a place where you literally see people grind away to make money for a living, but you don't care because you are working some angle against their trades while battling effing pirates gate camping at Amamake. No one really shouts racial slurs in anger, more disinformation or propaganda while shooting the shit. There is power alliances you cannot reckon with, there are trolls you cannot defeat.

Boring bits for certain professions aside no other game gives you the depth EVE Online does. Spreadsheets rule everything around me.

busterarm5• 12 years ago

S.R.E.A.M. Get the ISK! Jump out to a clone, y'all.

lazyjones• 12 years ago

Usually, reported EVE player numbers are a lie; it is dishonest to mention player numbers when account numbers are what is actually meant (and everyone knows that regular players involved in alliance warfare have and use multiple accounts more often than not).

rockdoe4• 12 years ago

This battle wasn't massive for amount of players, but for the in-game resources involved.

650REDHAIR2• 12 years ago

This is generally true for small-medium scale engagements, but when 2000+ are in local you can safely bet the majority are "real" people. We had engagements where our own alliance would essentially DDOS our VOIP server with 800-1000 people on.

kibwen• 12 years ago

If you follow the link to The Mittani:

http://themittani.com/news/sov-drops-b-r5-immensea-staging-s...

...you see speculation that the whole incident was triggered by a bug in the game. Has anyone confirmed that this is true? If so, it would be very disappointing. Given that the appeal of the game lies in delicate politics and long-term large-scale maneuvering, having all that work undone by a bug seems as though it would discourage players from investing the time and effort necessary to make the game worthwhile.

Qworg5• 12 years ago

I can say that, with almost perfect certainty, that any side who loses a major battle will complain about there being a bug. Or lag.

Bugs, mistakes and the rapid exploitation of the above are definitely in the spirit of the game.

rockdoe4• 12 years ago

Quite a few of the past large political shifts were due to betrayal and spies, effectively also making months of work undone instantly. The current one was due to a bug or due to a player making a mistake. I don't think players cater all that much for the difference, and we'll likely never know which one it was.

650REDHAIR2• 12 years ago

Almost every single medium to large scale fight in EVE will get "CCP'd" somehow. Whether it's a node crash, a node denying new connections, or any number of other issues.

It's frustrating at times, but generally accepted because it affects every side eventually.

deckiedan• 12 years ago

On the other hand, in RL, how many major changes to world politics, wars, etc, have been due to accidents? Bugs? Glitches in the matrix? It would be an interesting study, in some ways. Accidental wars...

kriro2• 12 years ago

It's the videogame that reminds me most of "Ready Player One" which is a pretty fun read.

One of my life goals is to do some studies on EVE (most likely economics). I'll convince someone it's a good idea eventually :)

Edit: Maybe do a study on terror cells and get military funding :P

omnibrain• 12 years ago

CCP Games, the developers of EVE already have a resident economist Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson (aka CCP EyjoG). If you search for his name you can find some interviews and presentations. I think he pretty much lives an economists dream.

Cthulhu_7• 12 years ago

Fun fact: intelligence agencies actually got funding to infiltrate into MMO's because there might be terrorist communications in there. Or something.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/09/tech/web/nsa-spying-video-...

Eve is a valid subject for an economics research though. It'll be doubly fun if you can join up with a large corporation and engage in market schemes; pump & dump, blocking supplies / trade routes, social engineering, or doing your own ponzi scheme. The good part is that none of these are illegal in Eve, so, knock yourself out.

clarky07• 12 years ago

Pretty sure this is already a thing. I think some major universities have done some studies on/using EVE. I don't currently have any links though sadly.

pinaceae• 12 years ago

i'll be "that guy" and fuck, i'm a gamer.

imagine that all this energy, time, effort and cash would be spent on some tangible issue. the revolution in ukraine, a movement for civil liberties.

there are very creative minds at work within EVE, reading the mittani is amazing. those guys would run circles around the organisers of, say, occupy wall street.

to put it dramatically and over the top - the world is burning and the brightest minds play games. sort of an inverse ender's game.

kriro2• 12 years ago

There is some scientific evidence that playing games is very beneficial. Somewhat related TED-talk (you can also check out her other talk): http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_the_game_that_can_gi...

brokenparser• 12 years ago

Sssh, that's all part of the plan.

zerohm• 12 years ago

I've had this thought as well. The good news is that there are millions of creative minds, improving the world, making a dent in the universe. The sad news is that there are billions of people just trying to get by, looking for comfort, looking for distraction. Gaming is just one of many ways people pacify themselves. (not a criticism of gaming, I'm a gamer as well)

alex_c2• 12 years ago

Some people do both - in the most literal sense. One of the top Eve players was killed in the Benghazi attack in Libya in 2012.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Smith_(diplomat)

mcguire• 12 years ago

I'm not sure; is the fact that someone did both better or worse, given that most of the "top", all-in players aren't?

nhayden• 12 years ago

This guy was nowhere near one of the top players in Eve. He was a pretty normal player.

Cthulhu_7• 12 years ago

I don't know, I like to think Eve has two skill trees, two progression levels. On the one side you have the in-game skills, spaceship command and weapon skills, that kinda thing. But those only get you so far; the other skills are ones you acquire IRL, things like fleet command, logistics, communications skills, organizational skills, etcetera.

Those can be used or applied IRL. I like to think.

Also, playing video games or other kinds of entertainment has a role in life. Sure, that energy could be applied to other, greater goods, but the fact of the matter is, nearly nobody has that kind of infinite energy supply, that kind of motivation, etc. There's a few that seem to do, which turn into people's role models - but those are the outliers. You can strive to be like those, but in reality, you'll just burn yourself out.

Relaxation has its role in life. Always has, too; sure, cavemen could be out hunting more food instead of sit around in their caves sharing stories of their ancestors, but they didn't. To name a random example.

TeMPOraL• 12 years ago

to put it dramatically and over the top - the world is burning and the brightest minds play games. sort of an inverse ender's game.

Well, you can look at the games like EVE as a big social simulations - they're sandboxed worlds very much resembling the real one, but they iterate faster and you (i.e. the authors) can alter the constrains and see what happens. I think MMOs should be studied in greater detail.

People wasting time is a sad thing, but failure to learn from any good data that comes out of it is also sad.

Dirlewanger• 12 years ago

I'm still awaiting a startup to gamify the political process and getting involved with civic duty. Sadly only then would we see people give a shit about politics.

lifeformed3• 12 years ago

Yes, if instead of coding trivial web apps we all became doctors, the world would be a better place, right?

Creativity and talent aren't fungible resources that you can just decide to apply to whatever is most noble. If you put a top level EVE player in charge of Occupy Wall Street instead, do you really think he'd have the passion and interest to do as good of a job as he does in EVE?

People are good at what they like doing, and there's no reason to be bothered over the fact that they aren't passionate about what you think they should be doing.

na854• 12 years ago

I know you're being facetious but the world actually would be a better place.

Refugees from war torn regions need medical care, not yet another JavaScript framework.

triangleman• 12 years ago

Borogravia, FYI, you have been hellbanned. No one can read your comments normally.

cgh• 12 years ago

The world is not burning. We are living in the most peaceful time in human history. A few people playing video games is neither here nor there.

sliverstorm• 12 years ago

It's a wargame. Think of the origins of chess.

Playing an intricate game of strategy/deception/organization/finance can be a form of "practice" for the other things in your life.

10feet• 12 years ago

This reminds of a joke.

Guy: "So, how much do you smoke" Girl: "I smoke a pack a day" Guy: "If you smoke a pack a day, that is 365 packs a day, 3650 over 10 years, and at $20 a pack that is $73,000. if you do that for 30 years, that is $219,000. Just think, if you didn't smoke, you could afford a ferrari" Girl: "Do you smoke?" Guy: "No" Girl: "Oh, so where is your ferrari?"

ep103• 12 years ago

those guys would run circles around the organizers of, say, occupy wall street

I'm a gamer, and I was an organizer of Occupy Wall Street. That you would even compare the difficulty between running a virtual guild in an online video game, to attempting to organize a real world dissident political movement from scratch, boggles my mind. I've done both, but you clearly don't have the slightest clue what you are talking about.

rl33• 12 years ago

EVE can be played a lot of different ways, but the novelty in each eventually wears off and it becomes monotonous.

This is especially true for large-scale alliance warfare, which, if you're at the top is something like a full-time job, and if you're merely rank and file, it's more like a part-time job.

In my opinion, the meta-game is more fun than the game itself in this context. There's an entire ecosystem that exists outside of the game that involves communication infrastructure, propaganda, spying, gambling, player services, etc.

Large power blocs have to be able to control the message, mobilize thousands of players on a moment's notice, and continually infiltrate their enemies to glean intelligence.

It's often jokingly said that EVE is "serious business." Players who fly the larger ships (supercapitals) typically receive SMS push notifications so they can mobilize faster. At the very top, certain players have been known to cash out (albeit illegitimately) on their power and wealth, earning a healthy real-life income stemming from their activities. Think hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Of course, as cool as all of that is, 15-hour-long battles suck. The game client, networking code and engine are a lot better than they used to be, but they're still woefully lacking for the purposes of extreme large scale warfare, to the point where participating in such battles is something akin to torture.

rockdoe4• 12 years ago

Good summary, I agree with everything you say. I'm finding reading up on the political evolution is as much fun as actually playing.

Tloewald2• 12 years ago

For me the novelty wore off in about an hour. Discovering that you it takes (significant) time just to spend skill points so that you can fly the new ship you just bought that it will take you (significant) time just to go and pick up in a game where pretty much all the game play consists of clicking on lists and waiting.

I think it's great the EVE has such an entertaining meta-community. I suspect it's precisely because the game itself is so slow-paced and dull that this is true (the real game takes place in your imagination, and the pace is such that you can spend a lot of time chatting with other players, etc.)

http://loewald.com/blog/?p=59

rockdoe4• 12 years ago

From quick reading: 1) I agree the time-based skilling isn't necessarily a good thing. 2) You didn't seem to realize you could get your stuff FedExed, by any of the player-operated services.

The latter illustrates the good point of the game: there's enough leeway/sandbox aspects that this is actually possible. This, and not the game being slow and dull are why it has a large following. There's plenty of slow and dull games no one plays.

Edit: Didn't realize your review was 8 years old. The game did change quite a bit since, particularly for new player introduction.

saraid2162• 12 years ago

It's worth noting that EVE is an idealized capitalist society, with all the realistic drawbacks that comes with that. I agree that the back story is essentially fantasy, but what you miss is that this doesn't mean you're a classic solo adventurer for whom the world bows down as you pass. (This isn't a jab; in most MMOs, this is the case.)

EVE is principally about market simulation, and pretty much everything you do is either a market externality (e.g., going to war) or a market action (e.g., mining). Contrast with WoW, which is an adventure simulation (if you're not on an adventure, WoW failed), EVE doesn't leave out the boring parts because they're critical to actually simulating the economics.

Which means arbitrage. Which means location matters. Playing the game is about figuring out what kind of entrepreneurship you want to engage in, and then optimizing it to maximize profits.

Yeah, this is non-obvious, and EVE is notoriously bad at teaching newbies. They've been trying to improve it, but it still comes down to finding mentors. Your criticisms are thus on the mark without actually criticizing the game itself; you just never got to play.

debacle• 12 years ago

I agree. I wish there was something that was EVE-lite or something. If the realism was notched down 2-3 levels it would be much more enjoyable. You can't be a casual (here meaning play 2-3 hours a week) and still enjoy EVE.

mguillemot2• 12 years ago

Shameless plug: if you think you'd enjoy EVE but are put off by the time necessary to get "into" it, or are just curious about alternative MMOs that are not WoW clones, I encourage you to check my game Gangs of Space, currently in playable alpha: https://www.gangsofspace.com

I'd be glad to provide alpha access keys to any curious fellow HNer (contact info is in my profile, or on the game website!).

wtracy• 12 years ago

Looks cool! What are the system requirements for this thing?

mguillemot2• 12 years ago

Any PC (Windows/Mac/Linux) sold in the last 5 years should be fine (might want ~600 Mb free RAM when a lot of players play at the same spot, but that's all). Up-to-date graphic drivers do help, especially on Linux.

ChuckMcM• 12 years ago

Interesting coverage on themittani site http://themittani.com/news/b-r5rb-biggest-battle-all-eve

Eve irritates me because I really enjoyed World of Warcraft. I would have much rather Blizzard had stayed on target rather than make many of the changes they did. The advantage of a place like Eve is that space is really really big, and in a planet based environment it sometimes is hard to be that big.

But the cool thing about Eve is how much amazing depth has evolved in that game and how "easily" you can just jump in and be part of something huge.

coolsunglasses2• 12 years ago

I played Eve for over 3 years, including as part of large alliances in some (now historical) wars.

It never stops being tedious & boring and it never stops being an economic grind.

My dream is for a space game that's actually fun to play and explore in, but allows the same richness of player interaction/cooperation.

Maybe someday.

chrizz• 12 years ago

Star Citizen from Chris Roberts:

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/about-the-game

wnevets• 12 years ago

EVE: spreadsheet the game.

gojomo2• 12 years ago

I wonder, is this sort of war good business for CCP, the Icelandic company running Eve? (Do they want more of them, or battles of a particular size/character?)

On the good side, I see:

• adds excitement/unpredictability/plot

• generates outside publicity

• ups demands for in-game goods

But on the bad side, perhaps:

• destroys long-cherished items/positions, weakening interest/attachment

• losing side feels sting of loss, faces upcoming grind of reattaining lost status: a likely quitting point

• winning side feels a sense of completion: also a likely quitting point

People who've quit: was it after some big reckoning battle, of either victory or defeat, triggering a re-evaluation of your participation? Or did big battles make you hungry for more?

baking• 12 years ago

It's all upside for CCP.

inopinatus3• 12 years ago

The first time you jump into a major fleet battle the adrenaline pumps so hard you'll think your heart is going to burst outta your chest. You spend the rest of your Eve career looking for that feeling again (it does come from time to time).

CCP love this stuff and encourage it. They've scaled Eve to support ever-larger fleet battles; nonetheless it's no wonder that an engagement of of this size meant significant lag for some. The players will always be pushing the envelope of what the servers can support.

I had to stop playing Eve because I needed my life back. But for some, yes, a significant material loss in Eve represents such an investment of personal time and energy that they will quit in despair. As a result there is no other MMO with such a richly woven player-driven plot. Nothing else comes even remotely close.

Once you've played Eve, every other MMO seems to be developed for those who need their PvP plotted out for them, conducted in a padded cell of safety where no-one ever really loses anything significant. And tremendously uninteresting as a result. c.f. the upcoming Elder Scrolls Online.

EDIT (addendum): I should add that even reading about this battle sent me running to pull out my old and dusty Eve navigation charts, check on the sovereignty status of my old alliance, rewatch a few old Eve war vids and even confirm that my long-dormant accounts still exist. Maybe if I had to spend six months in hospital I'd subscribe again. But otherwise, no, I have a life now and it's an itch I can never scratch.

gojomo2• 12 years ago

Thanks! Any good war vids you'd recommend for a total outsider?

Tuna-Fish• 12 years ago

But on the bad side, perhaps: • destroys long-cherished items/positions, weakening interest/attachment

EVE explicitly attempts to cater to the side of the market that wants to feel their actions have real consequences, as opposed to MMOs like WoW where the world is essentially steady-state. Half their marketing material refers to this.(1)(2) For them to succeed at this, it must both be possible to actually destroy something someone else cherishes, and have your favorite spaceship you've worked on for so long be permanently lost.

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSxSyv4LC1c (2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08hmqyejCYU

ZachPruckowski• 12 years ago

If you're going to quit because you lost a ship, you're not the sort of player to make it into a Super-Cap fleet for a big coalition. We're talking about people who do things like month-long marathon spawn camps or week-long fleets of shooting at towers. Everybody with a Titan in this fight has at least one other character they play most of the time.

Also I think you dramatically over-estimate the impact of this loss. All sides have dozens of other systems and income and funding that are relatively safe. PL/N3 lost a key forward base and a weapons cache, but it's not a crushing territory loss, and they still have one of the largest super-cap fleets in the game - they may have been set back weeks but they've been in this war for 3 months already and fighting these kinds of wars for years. In 2009, PL lost all their territory and their super-caps (coincidentally while allied to GoonSwarm) and then turned around and re-built into a major player again.

Similarly, while it's a nice feather in CFC's cap it's not like this is them winning the final boss battle. Heck, relative to GoonSwarm's 2006-2009 campaign against BoB and half of EVE or the time in 2010 when they forgot to pay a bill and lost the richest 3 regions of the map (and all of their territory), this is barely a footnote in their history.

busterarm5• 12 years ago

EVE is full of stories of large organizations that won the battles but lost the war.

Also, everyone should take heart what you said about lost ships. The best players only fly what they can afford to lose. Many of us players who did smaller-scale PvP had "rich-fit" ships just for comedy. Losing 25bil-fit frigates happens and most of us flew them because "fuck it" to begin with.

97s2• 12 years ago

My corporation quit when we became so good that no one would fight our small gang unless they outnumbered us 3-1. Eventually the lack of fights and the general laziness of moving to a new area led us to quit. So I guess yea, if we were just ok, we would still be playing.

tsotha• 12 years ago

By the time you're in one of these sorts of battles you've lost ships. Lots of 'em. You never undock without realizing someday, maybe today, you're gonna lose that ship.

pyrocat• 12 years ago

A more accurate headline would be "Eve Online sees the most expensive battle in its 10 year history"

iterable• 12 years ago

This is huge

Zenst• 12 years ago

I've played since 2003 and done the big alliance stuff, have mroe fun in smaller gangs/fights personaly and whilst I have a over 200SP PVP char who can fly capitals I never wished to go beyond dreads or carriers as being stuck in a boring big ship just did not seem fun to me and most have dedicated super-cap/Titan accounts/chars for that aspect alone.

Still, however many such fights are very much a lag-fest whoever you spell it out (bullet time or not) and the live stream I saw of this engagement was like watching a animated GIF downloading on a 300buad dial-up modem effect.

So sympathy allround to those involved in what should of been epic fun.

97s2• 12 years ago

Eve is one of the best and worst games ever made. I joined Eve years ago as a newbie from a friend invite, within months I had mastered small gang combat. My mentor put me into tackling ships at day 1 and I was a pirate -10 by 5 days into it with over 100 kills.

This whole idea that you can't play unless you have invested years is complete nonsense the most important role in the game is tackling and scouting, which you can do on a day old character.

Eve is a game where you make your own game goals. If you want to be a billionare and give away stuff and be e-famous you can do that. If you want to be one of the best solo pilots out there you can do that. If you want to be a spy and steal massive amounts of information or take down an alliance through meta gaming you can do that. Eve is basically a softer version of real life because you can change who you are within a few clicks of a button by buying and selling characters.

If you wanted to learn how to manipulate people and companies, then Eve is your training ground. It is basically the best sandbox game in the world. The spaceship part has nothing to do with it. If you want something to express every part of yourself you can do that in Eve.

I played for 3 years as a 10 man pirate corp. We set our goal to be the best PvPers in our area, we would constantly fight gangs 2-3 times our size and loose nothing and kill most of them using cunning tactics and game mechanics that most didn't know. It was fantastic, but also terrible, because once you become known, people only bring stuff to kill you, and being smart and scouting 8 systems out you know your not going to fight that. So at times there would be months with no good fights.

Eve is wonderful, I miss her, but I dont.

busterarm5• 12 years ago

I myself also had to quit EVE after 7 years, but I had one of the best player experiences you can get in that game.

Highlights: Being a member of Veto. Going to Iceland and meeting long-time friends (and meeting Mittens!). Making a best friend. Being present for the first ever Titan kill. Becoming among the richest players in the game without using T2 blueprints. Succeeding at ultra-high level market manipulation for massive profits. Launching several successful manufacturing enterprises. Epic kills that netted ultra rare item drops (prize ships, T2 blueprints). Running multiple identities and spying on people. Playing a key role in breaking up a large alliance through dirty politics. Plotting revenge on someone, slowly working my way into their circle and brutally backstabbing them 5 years later.

Nothing else comes close to touching EVE.

RIP DarkElf. RIP Vile Rat.

9999• 12 years ago

It would be interesting to read more about what you did. In particular it would be interesting to hear the details on the 5 year long espionage plot. Have you written about that somewhere?

busterarm5• 12 years ago

I haven't really, no. It would be interesting but also haven't played EVE in a couple of years by now so I don't have the right level of enthusiasm for the game anymore to really write about it, nor the time. Sorry :/

mvkel• 12 years ago

I know nothing about Eve, but it seems like the cool parts of Ender's Game come to life. Is that a fair assessment? I love the strategic aspects, but don't appreciate that it seems impossible to enjoy as a casual gamer.

Eve Online wages largest war in its 10 year history

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