3 ms·

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?)

by gojomo 13y 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 13y ago
It's all upside for CCP.
inopinatus 13y 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.
- gojomo 13y ago
  Thanks! Any good war vids you'd recommend for a total outsider?
  - inopinatus 13y ago
    There are two kinds of Eve videos: 1. Video art made using well-composed in-game footage that may not be entirely representative of the general experience. Most of the official promotional videos fall into this category. Since Eve is a visually sumptuous game, it lends itself well to this form. It is practically machinima, although I'd be surprised if anyone has modded the engine as many machinima artists do. great examples include: "Dreams of Yasur" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ_UiIYarhg "Lacrimosa, Tortuga" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYEaPLCCIrY "Empyrean Age Trailer" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKdTJjDnYzE (official promo) 2. Capture of a real battle. Here lies the real nostalgia. Unfortunately they tend to be less visually sumptuous and more hundreds of variously coloured & labelled objects in a highly technical 3D HUD that is almost incomprehensible without some Eve experience. They also tend to be long. Ideally accompanied by fleet voice battle chatter because otherwise they are not only dull to watch, you'll have no idea WTF is going on. recent good samples include: "the Battle of Asakai" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLqb-m1ZZUA "Anatomy of a fight" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMFahR4wXTg "Everlasting II" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMU2SsF0IZk and just to compare and contrast the fleet battle experience, here's an early Titan-class ship kill, from two opposing perspectives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymdSjCYK_PI (GS/PL) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nalljAJPe8U (BoB, teamspeak only) But in truth the two I was looking at were much older. They were the two movies that persuaded me to try Eve in the first place: "The Fallen". Apparently from 2005. You will have to forgive the typos and grammatical blunders to get to the somewhat emotional core, because the whole thing is touching "I miss you" letter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmKB-LlIdMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmKB-LlIdMI and read http://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=485027 http://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=485027 afterwards. "Bhaalgorn vs Nightmare". Must be from around 2004. Two vicious-looking and rare ships duke it out for a few minutes in what looks like a high-stakes stand-up fight. At the end it becomes apparent that this is, in fact, a promotional sales brochure and both ships are on the market. The realization of what that meant for the whole structure of the game is what attracted me to Eve in the first place. http://dl.eve-files.com/media/09/Bhaalgorn%20vs%20Nightmare.wmv http://dl.eve-files.com/media/09/Bhaalgorn%20vs%20Nightmare....
Tuna-Fish 13y 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSxSyv4LC1c (2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08hmqyejCYU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08hmqyejCYU
ZachPruckowski 13y 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.
- busterarm 13y 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.
97s 13y 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 13y 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.

by gojomo 13y ago

baking 13y ago

It's all upside for CCP.

inopinatus 13y 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.

gojomo 13y ago
Thanks! Any good war vids you'd recommend for a total outsider?
- inopinatus 13y ago
  There are two kinds of Eve videos: 1. Video art made using well-composed in-game footage that may not be entirely representative of the general experience. Most of the official promotional videos fall into this category. Since Eve is a visually sumptuous game, it lends itself well to this form. It is practically machinima, although I'd be surprised if anyone has modded the engine as many machinima artists do. great examples include: "Dreams of Yasur" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ_UiIYarhg "Lacrimosa, Tortuga" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYEaPLCCIrY "Empyrean Age Trailer" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKdTJjDnYzE (official promo) 2. Capture of a real battle. Here lies the real nostalgia. Unfortunately they tend to be less visually sumptuous and more hundreds of variously coloured & labelled objects in a highly technical 3D HUD that is almost incomprehensible without some Eve experience. They also tend to be long. Ideally accompanied by fleet voice battle chatter because otherwise they are not only dull to watch, you'll have no idea WTF is going on. recent good samples include: "the Battle of Asakai" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLqb-m1ZZUA "Anatomy of a fight" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMFahR4wXTg "Everlasting II" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMU2SsF0IZk and just to compare and contrast the fleet battle experience, here's an early Titan-class ship kill, from two opposing perspectives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymdSjCYK_PI (GS/PL) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nalljAJPe8U (BoB, teamspeak only) But in truth the two I was looking at were much older. They were the two movies that persuaded me to try Eve in the first place: "The Fallen". Apparently from 2005. You will have to forgive the typos and grammatical blunders to get to the somewhat emotional core, because the whole thing is touching "I miss you" letter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmKB-LlIdMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmKB-LlIdMI and read http://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=485027 http://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=485027 afterwards. "Bhaalgorn vs Nightmare". Must be from around 2004. Two vicious-looking and rare ships duke it out for a few minutes in what looks like a high-stakes stand-up fight. At the end it becomes apparent that this is, in fact, a promotional sales brochure and both ships are on the market. The realization of what that meant for the whole structure of the game is what attracted me to Eve in the first place. http://dl.eve-files.com/media/09/Bhaalgorn%20vs%20Nightmare.wmv http://dl.eve-files.com/media/09/Bhaalgorn%20vs%20Nightmare....

Tuna-Fish 13y 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSxSyv4LC1c (2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08hmqyejCYU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08hmqyejCYU

ZachPruckowski 13y 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.

busterarm 13y 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.

97s 13y 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 13y 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.