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EVE Evolved: The battle of Z9PP-H caught on camera
If you're the kind of person who loves reading about the political shenanigans that go on inside EVE Online, you should be aware that a colossal war has erupted in the wake of the Odyssey expansion. The expansion redistributed the value of nullsec moons and gave the two largest alliances in the game, the Reddit-based TEST Alliance and Something Awful-spawned GoonSwarm Federation, a good excuse to go to full-scale war. Allies have piled in on either side, and nullsec has erupted into full-scale region takedowns, spy-jacking, and more of the lovely political tomfoolery we love to hear about. EVE News 24 has been doing a good job of keeping players up to date on what's happening in nullsec, and its reporters are not the only ones keeping tabs on the war. Streamer Mad Ani has been setting up cameras in strategically important locations throughout the contested regions and providing live coverage of huge battles whenever they happen. A few days ago, the war came to a head in what could have been the deciding battle of the entire Fountain invasion. Over 4,000 people watched the stream as TEST's entire capital fleet of over 100 carriers was taking a pounding in Z9PP-H, when suddenly the server crashed and disconnected everyone in the fight. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at what happened in the battle of Z9PP-H, how CCP crashed its biggest piece of PR in months, and how player livestreams are changing the face of EVE Online for the better.
EVE Evolved: Five years of EVE Evolved
About five years ago, on April 27th, 2008, I joined the Massively team and wrote the very first issue of the EVE Evolved column. Five years later, the column is still going strong and delivering its weekly dose of EVE Online to thousands of readers. I used to worry about running out of ideas to write about, but regular game updates and hilarious player shenanigans mean there's always something interesting going on in New Eden. When EVE hits its 10th anniversary in May, this column will have been running for just over half of the game's lifetime. In that time, I've written over 250 in-depth articles, guides, in-game stories and opinion pieces on EVE Online and a few on DUST 514. As usual, I'll be celebrating this anniversary by rounding up this year's column highlights and giving away two 30-day Pilot's License Extensions to two lucky readers. To enter the competition, write a comment explaining which EVE Evolved articles from this year you liked best and what topics you'd like to see covered in the coming year. You will need an active EVE account to claim the prize, so be sure to include your character name in your comment if you want to be in with a chance. If you'd rather not give out your character name or don't have an EVE account but would like to give the game a go, you can sign up a new trial account and use the name of your new character. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look back at the highlights from the column's fifth year!
EVE Evolved: Making EVE history
EVE Online has the odd distinction of being one of the only MMOs in which the developers have almost no control over the active storyline. There have been plenty of fiction articles written about the game's backstory, and the NPC factions occasionally butt heads in short news pieces, but none of it feels very real. It's only when these events actually occur inside the game world that they become real, and when that happens, the outcome is at the mercy of players. 2010's spectacular Sansha abduction live event was the perfect example of this, with thousands of players becoming immersed in a very real emerging storyline. The story was fluid and evolved based on what players did, and so it made the NPC factions come alive in a way that fiction never could. While the scripted NPC portions of these storylines certainly constitute part of EVE's history, the most interesting tales follow the unexpected actions of players and alliances. The fascinating thing is that the audience for these stories extends far beyond the playerbase itself, with news of high-profile events occasionally taking the global gaming media by storm. But for every 3,000-man battle and 200 billion ISK scam that's reported, there are hundreds of smaller events that would be just as interesting to read about or watch a video on. Most of these events have been lost to the mists of time, kept secret or talked about only among those directly involved ... until now. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the types of NPC-based and player-run stories that happen regularly in EVE and speculate on CCP's upcoming plans to document and preserve that history.
EVE Evolved: Is EVE becoming a spectator sport?
This week saw another landmark event in EVE Online grab the gaming community's attention as over 3,000 players from dozens of alliances battled it out in the lowsec system of Asakai on the Caldari border. The battle reached 2,800 concurrent players at peak, falling just short of 2011's record-breaking siege of LXQ2-T which hit 3,110 simultaneous combatants at its peak. There were livestreams, tons of after-action reports, and the story of this immense battle started by one man clicking the wrong button really captured our imaginations. EVE is one of those rare cases in which a lot of people find the media that surrounds the game more fun than the game itself. News of big in-game events like scams, heists, and huge battles spreads across the internet like wildfire, even among people who hate the game or have never tried it. When news of the Asakai battle emerged, someone on Reddit suggested that people should play EVE for only a few months to get some background and then quit and just read the stories. I've seen a lot of similar comments over the years saying that EVE is more fun to watch and read about than play, and it makes me wonder if the game is becoming a bit of a spectator sport. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at why stories like the Battle of Asakai are so pervasive and explain why I think EVE should embrace its role as a spectator sport.
Colossal 3000-man battle rocks EVE Online
What started out as a few EVE Online alliances forming up PvP fleets last night rapidly evolved into one of the largest PvP battles in the game's history. Reports indicate that a total of over 3,000 players may have been involved in the colossal battle in the lowsec system of Asakai in the early hours of this morning, with hundreds of corporations taking sides in the conflict. The battle officially centred around a Liandri Covenant staging starbase in the Caldari faction warfare system of Asakai, but things rapidly got out of control as practically every major alliance with a capital fleet threw its own forces into the mix for a bit of fun and the chance to kill a titan or two. The system peaked at around 2,800 players fighting simultaneously, just 300 short of beating 2010's world record battle in LXQ2-T. Lag set in with around 700 players in the system, but EVE's Time Dilation feature kept the server running amicably up into the thousands of players. At the peak of the battle, the system was running at just 10% normal speed and people were experiencing several-minute delays on module activations. Dozens of valuable capital ships and supercapitals were destroyed, in addition to several titans worth several thousand dollars each. A few players filmed parts of the action and have shared footage of the slow-motion battle on YouTube. [Thanks to BobFromMarketing for the tip!]
