goonswarm
Latest
EVE Evolved: Grid-Fu and bending space
In last week's article, I described how EVE Online maintains the illusion of full-scale solar systems by dynamically creating small pockets of high-detail space called grids. It's within these discrete bubbles that everything we do in space takes place, from mining asteroids to running missions or shooting at other players. The system is designed to split up space into manageable chunks to reduce server load while still maintaining persistent 3-D space that appears to span the entire scale of a solar system. Grids have been in EVE since it was first created, but over the years people have noticed a few odd things about how the system works. Flying about 250km-400km away from a stargate causes your ship to disappear from that grid and pop into a newly created adjacent one, for example, but this doesn't always happen. Bizarre occurrences such as abnormally shaped grids and ships mysteriously disappearing and re-appearing on the same grid were always thought to be freak accidents or unintended bugs until an interesting document emerged in 2009. Titled Grid-Fu: A Practical Manual, the 18-page PDF described the process of bending and manipulating space for a tactical advantage. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the various ways that players have manipulated space to their advantage.
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: Top ten ganks, scams, heists and events
It's been called "boring," "confusing," and "the world's biggest spreadsheet," but every now and then a story emerges from sci-fi MMO EVE Online and grabs the gaming world's attention. Tales of massive thefts, colossal battles, high-value kills, record-breaking scams, political dirty deals, and controversial player-run events never fail to grip us. Perhaps it's the fact that these events have such huge impacts in the EVE sandbox that captures our imaginations, or maybe we just want to watch with morbid curiosity as a virtual society self-destructs. Whether it's innocent interest in quirky stories or a secret sense of schadenfreude that keeps us glued to EVE's most illicit events, the game continues to deliver them with startling regularity. Most scams, thefts, and high-profile battles will never make the news, instead becoming another forgotten part of EVE's history or just a story for a few friends to reminisce about. But those stories that do reach the news always draw in a huge audience that wouldn't play EVE in a million years but can't get enough of its engrossing stories. In this week's EVE Evolved, I run down a list of ten incredible EVE kills, scams, heists, and sandbox events that have made it into the news over the years.
EVE players abuse faction warfare to produce trillions of ISK
If there's one constant in the EVE Online universe, it's that the players can never be underestimated and every care must be taken to make sure systems can't be abused in unintended ways. In 2009, a handful of players figured out how to artificially boost the number of valuable faction warfare loyalty points rewarded for completing missions and farmed enough ISK to build a titan. That record was completely blown out of the water today as five EVE players revealed how they'd generated five trillion ISK using game mechanics introduced in the Inferno expansion. Inferno added a new reward system for faction warfare that gave players loyalty points for enemy ship kills based on the value of the destroyed ship and cargo. A bug was found that rewarded players for both the destroyed and surviving cargo, even though surviving cargo could be recovered. GoonWaffe pilot Aryth and four friends began destroying their own freighters full of minerals to cash the minerals out into loyalty points, which were then used to buy items for sale. When CCP discovered this bug and fixed it, the group manipulated the market price of one of the game's least-purchased items up to a huge number. When the price index for the value of that item updated, the players began destroying haulers full of them to generate billions of loyalty points for almost nothing. The points were cashed out into items for sale on the market, producing a total profit of over five trillion ISK. The abuse has not yet been declared an exploit, but CCP has fixed the issue and is still investigating it. At current market prices, five trillion ISK is enough to buy around 10,000 30-day game time codes worth a total of $175,000 US.
EVE Evolved: Building stronger communities
When I first started playing EVE Online at the start of 2004, only 40,000 players inhabited the game's 5,000 assorted solar systems. Despite having a peak concurrent user record of under 10,000 players, the game somehow didn't feel empty and desolate. Players built communities all across the map, and the purpose of the game became all about interacting with other players. I've played a lot of MMOs since then, but none has drawn me into its community as deeply as EVE has. I think that's because most MMOs today are aimed more at casual and solo play, and most guilds are glorified chat channels with shared bank space. There's plenty of room for solo players in EVE, but most of the gameplay is aimed at groups with purpose and ambitions larger than any individual can reasonably accomplish on his own. Holding territory and building supercapitals are jobs for large alliances, PvP is rarely a solo affair, and even grinding ISK is more fun in a group. This focus on group activities is usually seen as the driving force behind EVE's cohesive communities, but I think there's more to it. In this week's EVE Evolved opinion piece, I look at what drives EVE to create stronger in-game communities than you typically find in other MMOs.
EVE Evolved: Hulk hunting in highsec
As it's a sandbox game, a big part of what makes EVE Online special is the interesting things players make and do within the game world that developers didn't anticipate. It's ultimately the players who collectively shape the game world, in extreme cases even overturning some of the developed game mechanics. Most players think of high-security space as a safe place to mine and run missions, with CONCORD police keeping a watchful eye on players and destroying any ship that breaks the law. But in EVE you're never truly safe anywhere but inside a station. With the right ship setup, it's possible to kill a target in the few seconds before the police ships arrive to turn you into a smoking wreck. In 2008, GoonSwarm alliance launched its infamous JihadSwarm campaign aiming to suicide gank every mining barge in high-security space. The imaginary safety bubble that miners had lived in for years burst, and highsec mining temporarily became one of the game's most dangerous professions. When Helicity Boson later kicked off the first Hulkageddon event, pirates competed to see who could destroy the most mining barges, and miners in high-security space were prime targets. Hulkageddon went on to become a regular event, with achievements to be won and billions of ISK in sponsored prizes. Recently, Hulkageddon V took an interesting turn when Goonswarm Federation pledged to keep the event running permanently by paying players 100 million ISK for every 10 tech 2 mining barges they kill. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at Hulkageddon from both sides of the fence, with tips on how to suicide gank mining barges and how to stay safe when mining.
EVE Online's The Mittani issues formal apology for crossing the line [UPDATED]
Sci-fi MMO EVE Online is famed for being set in a cold, harsh universe where no player is truly safe. The line between griefing and gameplay is more subtle in EVE than in many other MMOs. Activities like scamming or Goonswarm alliance's Ice Interdiction operations could be seen as griefing in other games, but as long as it all stays in-game it's all a legitimate part of EVE's unforgiving sandbox universe and open PvP ruleset. Yesterday we reported that Goonswarm's leader and elected CSM chairman The Mittani mistakenly crossed that all-important line during a drunken presentation at Fanfest 2012. In his talk, he gave out the name of another player and told viewers to "find him" if they wanted to make him kill himself. Today The Mittani landed following his flight home from Fanfest and reportedly was ashamed to read the transcript of what he said during his panel. He issued a full apology via the forum, describing himself as "utterly ashamed and sickened by [his] behavior." "This has been hanging over my head since Thursday when I stumbled away from the Alliance Panel with a vague sense that I had done something horrible," he began. "Then I landed, and saw the article listing my actual quote." He told players, "It's one thing to play a villain in an online roleplaying game, but I am not that character in real life, as anyone who has met me can attest. I went way, way, /way/ past the line on Thursday night." CCP's investigation is still underway, and we'll bring you the results of that investigation as soon as we get them. [UPDATE: This post has been updated as part of an apology for covering the story in a sensationalist manner]
The Soapbox: Why we grief - a therapy session
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Welcome to the Massively Psychiatric Center for Gamers, Griefers, and Greater Internet F-wads (link NSFW). I'm Dr. Reahard, and while I'm most definitely an armchair psychologist, psychiatrist, and MMOlogist, pay no attention to any of that. I'm more than qualified to help you determine whether or not you're a bleep (sorry, a griefer). So please, have a seat, make yourself comfortable, and let's talk about you. Tell me about yourself. Do you relish that feeling of power you get when messing with another human being? Is there a certain sense of being alive, a rush if you will, that only comes around when you bleep with another person? Does said bleeping happen exclusively in video games where your actions carry no perceivable repercussions? Are you secretly frustrated with a banal and disturbingly meaningless white-collar existence? Does releasing your inner bleep in a (theoretically) anonymous online environment scratch the itches made manifest by a minivan, 2.3 kids, and the otherwise inescapable confines of suburbia?
EVE Online Fanfest 2011 roundup: Day 1
Once per year, EVE Online developer CCP Games throws a colossal party in its home country of Iceland. EVE players from around the world fly to Iceland to meet up with other players, talk about internet spaceships and usually get completely drunk. CCP hosts a series of events, round-table discussions and presentations all about EVE, showing what the team has been up to over the past year and revealing plans for the game's ongoing development. Fanfest has typically catered to EVE's most dedicated fans, or at least those motivated enough at the prospect of an EVE convention to brace the Icelandic weather. This year, the focus is much wider, with over 3,000 players in attendance and a huge contingent of press. Day one of the EVE Fanfest has come to a close, and the event is now in full swing. Read on for a roundup of what happened today, along with detailed explanations of a few personal highlights from today's festivities.
GoonSwarm alliance disbanded in EVE Online political drama
In the sandbox of New Eden, rival alliances vie for control of vast swathes of star systems. The lawless nullsec regions of the EVE Online universe are home to violent alliances of all sizes and fleets with hundreds of ships clash on a daily basis. The political machinations of nullsec have produced many stories of wars fought over territory, stations conquered and fleets dismantled by force. Over the years, each story has become part of the game's living history. Recently, a new chapter in that history began as the nullsec sovereignty system governing territorial warfare received a complete overhaul in the Dominion expansion. The transition period has been rough on some alliances as a new sovereignty system requires new ways of thinking. Some alliances are falling, new ones are being forged to fill the power vacuum and the race is on for people to adapt to the new sovereignty system. As we've been watching the EVE galaxy performing its Darwinian reshuffle, it came to our surprise that GoonSwarm, the game's biggest territorial alliance, had been disbanded. In the early hours of Wednesday 3rd February 2010, GoonSwarm CEO "karttoon" kicked almost every corp from the alliance, effectively disbanding it. There's more to this story than meets the eye and in this investigative piece, I delve into the thick of it to discover just what's going on with this troubled alliance.
EVE Online spymaster The Mittani to present at GDC 2010
EVE Online developer CCP Games typically has a presence at major industry events like the upcoming Game Developers Conference, but the session that's caught our attention so far isn't a presentation from the devs -- it's actually from a member of the EVE community. That GDC 2010 speaker is Alexander Gianturco -- better known to most EVE Online players as Goonswarm's spymaster, The Mittani. Others may know the infamous player as the "Sins of the Solar Spymaster" EVE columnist at Ten Ton Hammer. Gianturco will give a lecture at GDC 2010 titled "Uniquely Ruthless: The Espionage Metagame of EVE Online" that will give an insider's perspective on the political machinations possible in the game's sandbox of New Eden. His talk will hit on topics like the disbanding of the Band of Brothers alliance, how the espionage metagame has changed over time, and of course the myriad aspects of EVE's sandbox that allow players to even engage in such pursuits. The session description for Uniquely Ruthless: The Espionage Metagame of EVE Online states that Gianturco's presentation should be of general interest to anyone with a love of spies and their stories.
The challenges and rewards of espionage in EVE Online
Goonswarm spymaster The Mittani took a different approach with his latest EVE Online column at Ten Ton Hammer, and conducted an interview with a corporate saboteur titled "The Most Dangerous Agent". While it should be stated that most players in EVE do not engage in espionage, it's a career path of sorts that any player could potentially engage in, provided they have the combination of intelligence, social skills, and dedication needed to succeed. It's that aspect of dedication which often goes unmentioned -- the challenge of maintaining long-term duplicity. The Mittani's interview with a player anonymously referred to as "Darwin's Accelerator" explains how a player with destructive aims greater than simply engaging a few enemy ships at a time can use intel to devastating effect, wiping out entire fleets. Maintaining a persona that fits in with the target organization and thus won't arouse suspicion, however, can be difficult if the infiltrator genuinely dislikes the members that comprise the corporation or alliance.
One Shots: One among many
The one thing that really differentiates EVE Online from many other MMOs out there is the depth of control that players have over sectors and all the machinations that go on daily in the universe of New Eden. You never know when friend will become foe; when trusted ally will become ultimate enemy. Today's great EVE Online One Shots was sent in to us by Kel'taith of Eve Defence Force, who tells us of a recent operation he was part of. Recently Goonswarm and Zenith Affinity, the largest alliance (and their "pet") in EVE invaded my alliance Systematic-Chaos. We have had hostile relations for quite some time so war was a easily foreseeable outcome. Lucky for us we are a well liked alliance and have many allies. This screen-shot was taken in A1-AUH during a operation to rid us of all of Goonswarm and Zenith POSes in one go. The result was a combined fleet of 900 at its height, almost 300 of which were massive capital and super-capital ships. Twenty enemy POSes were killed that night, and many are calling this the largest fleet of capital ships ever seen. You can see my tiny interceptor that was used as the warp in for this fleet of carriers. With cooperation, proper tactics, and loyalty towards allies you can achieve anything in this game.We love to hear of cool things like this! So if you're part of a battle, please snag some screens and send them our way. Email them to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description. We'll post them out here for everyone to enjoy -- but we take no responsibility when someone decides to wardec you. %Gallery-9798%
Why you should be playing EVE Online: One server, one universe
"Why you should be playing ..." is a freeform column from Massively.com intended to inform you about our favorite parts of our favorite games. We want you to know why we're playing them, so you can know what to play. It's been dead for too long, but now it's back. The ultimate opinion column, "Why You Should Be Playing," is making a triumphant return to the pages of Massively! For those unfamiliar with this feature, this is the space where the Massively staff gets to tell you why we play our favorite games. We try to spread the love of MMOs unknown so you get to see some of the great features of MMOs you may not play.Today's feature has all guns locked on EVE Online and the power of the Tranquility server. EVE has a vast universe of countless star systems and now even sports gigantic areas of uncharted space, but did you know that all of that world is housed on multiple servers that act as one?
Has EVE's most powerful alliance fallen?
Band of Brothers (renamed KenZoku) was once the most powerful alliance in EVE Online with a stated goal, even here at Massively, to control all of the game's New Eden galaxy. Now, KenZoku has reportedly left the contested, lawless frontier of 0.0 space after months of resisting the combined forces of rival alliances. One of EVE's in-game journalists, Interstellar Correspondent ISD Clarity Brown, reports from the site of KenZoku's last holdout: "GoonSwarm and their allies deployed a camp on KenZoku's sole remaining outpost last night. A joint force of pilots from Pandemic Legion, GoonSwarm, Morsus Mihi, Razor Alliance and KIA deployed 27 titans around the station in a show of force and gave a demonstration of the sheer power embodied in such a gang." Titans are the game's most expensive weapons of mass destruction, massive ships capable of unleashing 'Doomsday' area-of-effect attacks that melt fleets caught in the blast. To unleash 27 Doomsday blasts at once is... quite a sight, as the video footage demonstrates.
Further developments in EVE's 'Grand Theft Alliance' drama
[Notify] Drama bomb hits you, wrecking for total damage. var digg_url = 'http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/02/05/further-developments-in-eves-grand-theft-alliance-drama/'; We broke the story late last evening that one of EVE Online's most powerful alliances has finally fallen after years of continual struggle with rival player alliances. While some details surrounding the incident remain hazy, we do have some more information than we did when we published the rumor. Band of Brothers (aka "BoB"), the self-styled villain alliance in the game, have repeatedly professed a desire to control all of EVE's galaxy of New Eden. This motivation driving their collective action has made them the focal point of hatred for much of the community, and BoB wouldn't have it any other way. More enemies equates to a real challenge for them to overcome, and in this respect -- whether you love them or despise them -- Band of Brothers has been a major driver in player warfare since the early days of EVE Online. Despite the thousands of pilots in the game fervently committed to wiping Band of Brothers from the influence map, the alliance has held on. Even though they were forced to sacrifice vast territorial control for a smaller region of consolidated strength, even when on the ropes, they remained impossible to destroy. The irony is that for all their raw military power, the alliance was ultimately cut down from within, with only a few simple clicks of a mouse. It was a bureaucratic snafu from the perspective of Band of Brothers -- a member of the alliance named Haargoth Agamar (a director with Black Nova Corp) being entrusted with too much control -- and a windfall for GoonSwarm, the major alliance rival of BoB.
Keeping yourself alive in EVE with safespots
Learning how to create safespots in EVE Online is an essential survival skill, but it's one that takes some time to get the hang of. The Goonfleet video tutorial to safespotting is an excellent start, but other player resources are popping up and explain how important it is to have and properly use different types of safespots.EVE blogger Manasi has written an excellent guide to safespotting called "Getting your A$$ out of the fire" that covers the different types of safespots a player in EVE can make use of. Namely, "gate" safespots (useful for watching a gate at range while cloaked), "deep" safespots (used most often, numerous such bookmarks are needed), and "station" safespots (within docking range of a given station, allowing you to evade attackers by docking up). Manasi goes into detail about how to create each type of safespot, and -- most importantly -- how to use them. Manasi's "Getting your A$$ out of the fire" paired with the aforementioned Goonfleet Safespotting 101 are all you need to get a handle on safespotting in EVE Online. Be sure to check them both out if you're a new pilot. Goonfleet's Safespotting 101 video tutorial is embedded below the cut.
EVE's alliance warfare the largest virtual conflict ever waged
Alliance warfare is an aspect of EVE Online that sets it apart from virtually any other MMO on the market. It commands a devoted following of players who continually exert their collective strength to conquer new regions of space while subjugating their numerous opponents.Although it's been said that only a minority of EVE Online's entire playerbase are entrenched in alliance warfare over 0.0 (lawless) space, this is where much of the action in the game takes place. 0.0 is where the most valuable resources in the game are found, and where the authorities do nothing to hinder player activities. The wealth, freedom and potential for power turn EVE's vast swaths of 0.0 space into hotly contested regions... the battlefield of "the largest virtual conflict ever waged," in the words of games journalist Jim Rossignol.
Leadership in EVE Online applicable to real-world ventures
EVE Online has been getting increased mainstream media coverage. Recently the New York Times covered EVE's Council of Stellar Management (CSM) summit in Reykjavik, as well as the self-styled 'bad guy' alliance Band of Brother's initiative to annihilate their rivals in New Eden, wiping them from New Eden's star maps. A new MMO article at Forbes takes a close look at the corporate paradigm of EVE Online, both in-game and out. The piece touches on the views of Goonswarm alliance leader and CSM delegate Sean Conover (aka Darius Johnson, CEO of Goonfleet) and the real-world CEO of CCP Games, Hilmar Veigar Petursson. The Icelandic CEO states: "There isn't a lot of difference between what you can apply within the game and out of it... It's more about social skills than gaming skills. It's very hard to stay on top."
EVE Online's CSM summit covered in The New York Times
EVE Online has cropped up in The New York Times twice this weekend. Powerhouse alliance Band of Brothers announced their plans for New Eden in one story, while the Council of Stellar Management's (CSM) summit with CCP Games also caught The New York Times' attention. A number of members of the press were in attendance at the CSM summit in Reykjavik, a first for EVE Online and for the MMO industry itself. It's refreshing to see increased mainstream coverage of the niche title that avoids the 'gee golly' tone so prevalent when MMOs are discussed in mass media. Seth Schiesel from The New York Times reports broadly on the 12 hours of meetings between the players who comprise the CSM and the developers and executives of CCP Games. As with any democratic process, differing viewpoints on how the CSM should operate led to some internal conflicts, Schiesel writes. It's interesting to note that the American CSM delegates favored "full and total disclosure" while their European counterparts on the Council preferred to deliberate privately before going public with recommendations and announcements. Given the controversy and forum outcries surrounding the CSM in recent weeks, it's understandable that this divide in outlooks would persist. But whatever issues the CSM had with one another, they were put aside as the Council performed their elected duties, representing the interests of their constituents face-to-face with CCP. See The New York Times piece for more details on the CSM meeting in Reykjavik, and for a brief profile of some of the delegates next to their alter egos.
