¢ontext ¢ounts

Ok, this is a follow on the my post $ensational(ism) from the other day.  And since I used the Dollar sign there, I’m throwing the Cent sign here.  At the end of $ensational(ism) I threw out a statement that hadn’t really been introduced or supported, and I didn’t really like leaving it out there.  It’s kind of an itch that I need to scratch.

Battles don’t happen in a vacuum.  There’s a rich context for them.  There’s a reason for them, and that reason tells part of the story.  For example let’s look at the Halloween war.  N3 booted Solar out of that bastion of Russian Rodina, the Eastern Drone Regions.  Because EvE has always been at war with Eastasia.  In fact I think this poster could be a great EvE recruiting poster:

Starring The Mittani as Emmanuel Goldstein and Big Brother all at once.

So N3 has gone after the Russians.  PL is backing them because they are bored and getting paid (presumably) Goons are backing the Russians because the one thing the Goons will almost always do is help the Russians and the only people the Russians can be absolutely counted on to help is the Goons.  They have had each other’s back for a long time.

Added to the fun:  PL and Goons have a deep and complex relationship.  Frenemies is probably too strong, but Friendly Rivals certainly isn’t too strong a term.  Their mutual history runs a long damn time, and includes a lot of knives in a lot of backs.  Right now they trust each other in that way you trust someone who you know is planning to knife you at some point, just not this week.

On to the point.  Right now CCP is seeing a huge rush of people trying out EvE due to the media coverage of B-R.  These players joined because they saw huge space battles, they saw huge numbers of players, of dollars, of explosions.  Right now a lot of them are finding out 2 things.  First:  This game is COMPLICATED.  Second:  You can get into a lot of content in a hurry if you make the right connections, but it might not be for you, and even if it is it might not be the best thing.  CCP has sold people a game where you fight battles with thousands of players, in a universe where you can make a mark forever.  What they didn’t mention too loudly was that there’s not many battles that big, and except for the statue, the odds of you making your mark in any lasting way are pretty small.  Sure you can be bold, lead, and do great things.  You can also get chased out in ignominy in three weeks.

Now just in case you are a new player looking for tips, here’s some for you:

1. Don’t fit warp core stabs.  Just don’t.
2. Ask questions.  If you don’t get answers you can understand, ask again somewhere else.
3. Find a community to be a part of.  You don’t have to actually join a corp, but you really should start making friends ASAP.
4. Don’t fly what you can’t afford to lose.
5. Try different things.
6. Ask for help.
7. Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.
8. Don’t fit stabs.
9. Fill the slots on your ship.
10. 1 tank per ship please
11. Don’t fly what you can’t afford to lose
12. and Don’t.  Fit.  Stabs.

I’m using it every time I can

$ensational(ism)

So a lot of people in the media have been talking about the $300 battle.  This is both true, and disingenuous.  If I were to throw down 300k in cash on Plex, and convert them into ISK, assuming I managed to not crash the market, I would have enough ISK to buy the ships that were lost in the battle.  I could not, however, take the ships that were lost in the battle, and sell them for ISK, convert them back to PLEX, and sell them for real money.  The mechanisms and rules of the game don’t allow it.  I could probably sell some of them for real money, I think we all know or at least believe this to be the case.

Today I heard NPR’s Marketplace interview The Mittani.  Mittens does a good job selling the concept of the $300k battle.  He mentions that there were people who spent money out of the game to buy ships in game.  Now this is not necessarily accusing people of RMT, although he certainly implies a degree of condescension towards the practice of using real money in any way to buy ships, by specifying that he knew that people on the losing side had done this.  I think no one even vaguely familiar with Goons would be in any way surprised to find that there were several people in goons who’d PLEXed for ships; and there’s nothing wrong with this.  Hell I’ll be doing so later this month.

The Mittani and CCP both have become victims of their propaganda, and the long-term prejudices of MMOs.  RMT is bad.  This is a very simple, and generally true statement, but not all RMT is bad.  EvE has a lot of grinds and the game allows you to buy game time, sell it to other players, and buy whatever they want with the proceeds.  This does far less damage to the economy than wholesale, unregulated third party RMT.  It does permit “Wallet Warriors” to bling out there ships and do a hell of a lot, but due to the incremental increases in capabilities offered, it doesn’t give massive, overwhelming advantages to people using this (beyond the ability to bring the bling time and again, but frankly that’s just wealth redistribution against the wrong enemies).  The only time the advantage does get truly oppressive is when it is played out on the macro scale.  Were PL to drop a truly mammoth amount of cash to replace their whole fleet, only more so, and bring in other folks to do the same to tilt the balance, it would certainly be possible to do so, but… well… I doubt how sustainable it would be for them (if they can sustain it, more power to them, maybe they can fund some better expansions).  This is the trap of the prejudices of the MMO industry.

EvE has built this article of faith that everything is worth money.  That the money in game is directly tied to real money.  The connection is tenuous, it goes only in one direction, and it can very quickly change, so that this battle, that today represented roughly $300k in a very indirect way, will next year represent a much smaller figure, and in a few more years represent an even smaller figure.  The wars of EvE have a context, and the context isn’t the wealth destroyed, but the bonds broken.  The creation and destruction of alliances and coalitions, the betrayals, and the battles.  Not the almighty dollar.

I’m using it every time I can

Dark Bankers in Shady Rooms

So Rixx Javix posted a piece on the threat that the gambling houses of EvE present to the community.  I think he has some points.  I also think he’s wide of the mark.  The wealth being accumulated by the “Bankers” who should be more accurately called financiers.  But that’s just a quibble.  We’ll go with bankers.

For a long time it appeared that inflation was the biggest problem facing EvE.  Now that problem seems to be less prevalent.  Prices might fluctuate, but it isn’t an endless steep climb.  Rixx is contending that these bankers consolidation of wealth, that their focused power in the hands of a shadowy few presents an immense threat to EvE.  He also presents Plex as part of the problem.  I’m going to deal with the second part very quickly, and very simply.  He writes the sentence “Much like paying for game time with real world money” without realizing that… we all do that.  Whether you pay with a Plex or your credit card, you pay for game time with real world money.  The big difference is EvE allows you to pay for my game time (and please… feel free) I get what he’s saying, that that transference of payment, and the reciprocal transfer of wealth to the wallet-warrior is unabalancing, my main counterpoint is that people buy gold in every game with gold in it.  EvE has a fantastic control in place, because there’s a very hard in-game cap on what people will buy, as a “carrot” and the righteous wrath of the banhammer as the “stick” to discourage people from the black market isk.  Yes it’s the lesser of two evils argument.  This is EvE, it’s all evil.

Now let’s talk about these bankers.  Bankers.  Financiers.  Whatever you want to call them they can do a few things.  They can invest their money to drive further profits.  Somer markets like madmen.  Seriously.  Think about the prizes they give out.  Bonus blinks, Bonks.  Mega-blinks.  All that stuff.  That’s a lot of isk.  What else do businesses do?  They invest in their infrastructure.  Umm… Think they need a lot more freighters?  Think that’s what’s limiting their profits?  Nope.  They try to influence events in their favor.  Ok, I could see them throwing some bribes around to destabilize things, foment a war or two to drive demand, but arguably bored people making isk and spinning in station would be better customers, so what influence do they pursue in their own interest?

Wealth itself is not inherently evil.  The accumulation of wealth isn’t necessarily evil either.  It’s not inherently good of course, but in an economy like EvE, where everyone truly does have the opportunity to pursue wealth, it is certainly not evil to see how many digits you can tack on to your wallet.  The use of that wealth can be “evil” within the confines of the game, but again who really gets harmed?  Even if you grief the ever living hell out of highsec, you’ve ruined a couple evenings for a couple people, and probably driven others to try something more fun than mining.  Like watching paint dry.  Or spreadsheet warrioring.  Or blogging.  Or PvP.

To me these bankers are content creators first and foremost.  They add shade and nuance to a game that can always use more.  I imagine anyone on their staff can plex their accounts as much as they want, for providing an in-game service to players which they literally line up for.  I do admit that they probably have the isk to influence alliance activities.  Probably to a scary degree.  But how scary is it?  No one is being coerced, and if people get duped and their pixels get blowed up… It’s pixels, we’ll be laughing about it when RANE takes over the north or whatever craziness happens in 6 months.

The ultimate power in this game is the ability to vote with your feet.  The richest man in EvE can’t win a single fight against 5 guys that know what they are doing.  I’m reminded of Stalin talking about the Pope, and wondering how many divisions he has.  If Somer calls a holy war against the Goons… who rallies to their support?  They can hire mercenaries, but the mercs are going to look long and hard at consequences.  The days of Mercenary Coalition letting BoB bleed them out are so long gone and buried I doubt half the readers of this blog know what the hell I’m talking about.  Sure Somer can finance whatever they want.  They can buy a fleet of faction fit T3 cruisers, supercaps, AT ships, whatever.  Who’s gonna fly them?  Who’s gonna FC them?  Better yet, if they come out of the shadows and piss people off, how long will it be before their source of isk dries up as people move to less controversial sources of entertainment in-game?

That’s not to say that it isn’t a concern.  But the only people being hurt right now are the people who gamble too much of their isk.  Who gamble what they can’t afford to lose, which should be an even bigger rule than not flying what you can’t afford to lose.  Somer is making isk.  Somer’s managers want to keep making isk so they will stay in the shadows where they are safe from the consequences of their own actions.  If they come out, they expose themselves to the millstone that is EvE’s politics.  The millstone that has ground away at the likes of BRUCE, BoB, RA, -A-. AAA, RA. and -A- again… NC, and many others.  Why would they do that when they can keep doing what they are doing and count the trillions?

I’m using it every time I can

The Cream Rises, and Gets Scooped Off

So TEST has had a bit of a rough go of it in Aridia.  Down 1/3 of their members in fact.  And if some were booted, many, even most, were not.  In any organization the cream rises to the top.  There it can be seen, observed, studied, and stolen.  There are many who have left TEST who didn’t have the cojones to deal with the upheaval.  There were far more who had better opportunities elsewhere, especially with as many frenemies as TEST had.

Of note to me is Di-Tron, formerly the core of Atlas.  Enlightened Industries, a 2011 TEST corp.  Ponywaffe, which joined Di-Tron in Insidious Empire, not to mention the numerous defections to Black Legion and the leadership that has abandoned ship.  TEST is bleeding talent out of proportion with the numbers of players they’ve lost.  Which is something of an achievement when you’ve lost 5000 members in the last week.

So today TEST announced that they would harass Fountain.  The good news is they won’t be taxing their leaders by demanding that they set up safespots, they should have good ones already.  The problem is TEST is announcing this while still pouring random liquids on the million house fires they have burning in Aridia.  They thought they were stepping on a roach nest in the classy russians of Infernal Octopus, instead they got scorpions.  But really who could forsee Russians fighting with determination and fury when defending their homelands?  When has this ever happened before?  They thought they’d get breathing room to recover their strength, in a region that has connections to *Deep Breath* Delve, Fountain, Khanid, Solitude, Genesis, and 2 jumps into Solitude takes you into Syndicate *Gasp*.  But surely there’s no one that could set up a midpoint cyno in Khanid, Ertoo or Hophib for Titan Bridges.  So having moved from the fire into the frying pan TEST has decided that dancing on the edge of the pan and dipping their toes in the fire is preferable to out and out frying pan treatment.

Edit:  Apparently the folks of Infernal Octopus use this gif to show how well TEST has moved them out (other than whomping some POS towers)

Good luck with that.

TEST still has the solid for of (D)Redditors to keep the alliance extant, but beyond that their ability to project power is more on par with an alliance less than a quarter their size (yet still in the top 20 alliances size wise) their ability to SUSTAIN that power projection is practically nil.  They are broke on many levels.  Their leadership capital is probably damn near negative.  Their personnel capitol is scraping the bottom for an alliance half their size.  Their money capital is a well advertised nil.  I wouldn’t trade places with Booda if he promised to not touch all the wallets exactly as they are.  They still have their super fleet, and they have their name.  They don’t have a name.  They don’t have enough FCs to run any kinda of a fleet, their logistics is beyond a shambles, yet they will survive.  They will get pounded.  They might fall below 6000 members.  If they purge inactives they might fall below 3000, and they will take body blows on the way.  They cannot realistically hope to drive FA from fountain.  They can only hope to take some heat off the frantically reorganizing nullbears in Aridia.  Some of the heat.  Not a lot because the Russians will be there, as will the rest of the Aridia locals.  TEST has been lucky running 80 man fleets around to pop Infernal structures, that kind of fleet looks awfully tempting to many of the folks in the area.

TEST has launched a campaign in Fountain when I cannot believe for a second that they have any clue what capabilities they really have to bring to the field beyond shitposting.  They need to establish leaders who will be there for more than a week.  They need to take stock of what they really have, even if it means mass kickings of people who can’t be arsed to show up or even log in.  They need to take the time to get people on the same page, get them organized and get them moving in a direction that makes sense.  They need time to develop a fresh crop of folks.  They need time for cream to rise to the top, and time away from the spotlight so it doesn’t get crapped on or stolen before it’s any good.

I’m using it every time I can

Howdy Neighbor (Bring my Killing Shotgun)

So I go to bed having decided to work with JIHADASQUAD in Khanid, and wake up with a new neighbor over in Delve.  TEST Alliance. Which more and more seems to be determined to turn into Dreddit and pals.  I think it’s safe to say nearly anyone paying any attention expected TEST to git while the gittin’s good.  I don’t think Aridia was that high on anyone’s list.  The constellation they have chosen is traditionally infested with Russians.  There will probably be some skirmishing and bickering with them and the other Aridia locals.

And by that I mean these guys will take every chance to beat up on the sick and feeble parts of TEST.  TEST can roam the area and probably put out multiple fleets the locals can’t handle.  But can they be everywhere?  Can they save themselves from their more moronic members running around like… well… morons and getting themselves killed.  Possibly in shiny caps and whatnot.

So on to Khanid, and welcome to our new neighbors.  You might want to dig in a bit.

I’m using it every time I can

I Was Right. I Think

So Mittens has declared that CFC won’t be invading Delve with the goal of killing TEST.  At least not for now.  They will certainly defend Fountain.  They will almost certainly raid Delve.  They probably won’t kick TEST out.  In that regard I believe myself to be right and Ripard to be wrong.  Don’t worry I won’t get used to it.  He’s too sharp and too well connected to be wrong very often, I just read my tea leaves a bit better this time.

Moreover, it doesn’t look like CFC will have to lift a finger to make TEST collapse.  Their leadership is a raging inferno, awoxers are driving corps out, lack of leadership is driving out others, and there’s so many knives out for TEST that they look like Goons at low tide.  All those they’ve wronged, slighted, or who imagine themselves wronged or slighted are ready for revenge.  Possibly pre-emptive revenge.

I’m not worried for TEST.  This will hurt.  Probably a lot.  They may travel quite a distance before they hit rock bottom.  This wont kill them.  TEST is too heavily anchored outside the game to lose out.  They share that quality with Goonswarm.  It’s not a bad one either.  However this meta-invulnerability doesn’t translate to actual invulnerability.  They might lose Delve.  They will almost certainly lose systems.  They are already losing members and corps.  Maybe not weeping blood, but losing a lot of cogs from the machine.  They’ve lost their cachet as the credible alternative to the CFC.  They’ve lost most of their leadership, and frankly they’ve lost their direction.  Right now they are in Delve frantically trying to not lose more… everything.

CFC meanwhile just declared Caldari Ice Interdiction time.  They are moving on.  They have something fun and zany to do to keep the masses busy and keep them from blowing up things they probably shouldn’t.  Like shooting sov structures in Delve.  CFC has friends, they have victories to rest on, they have activities to keep them busy, and a leadership structure that is humming along keeping everything moving as best as it can.

Goons don’t need Delve.  They don’t need the win, and they certainly don’t want to risk breaking momentum shooting structures for another two months.  TEST is safe from Goons.  They might not be safe from themselves.

I’m using it every time I can

No guys. Just no.

So there were two comments out of the 6V fight that I just cannot agree with.  The first one is from the normally brilliant Ripard Teg who believes

that there was some kind of back-channel negotiated peace offered by TEST over the weekend… and the CFC rejected it out of hand.  I said last week that Fountain has traditionally been the road to an invasion of Delve.  Goons have about a 50/50 success rate at invading Delve.

I have to ask:  Why the HELL would Goons invade Delve?  They have just come out of a lengthy, painful, but successful war.  They still have a LOT of structures to shoot, and probably it will be one helluva grind to get rid of the structures involved.  Finally there’s claiming such sov as they do want to, mostly to keep TEST from having easy access to the moons that Goons fought to take.  Finally:  Goons don’t hate TEST.  They don’t want to destroy the alliance, they don’t want to salt their fields.  They want to go back to the old relationship where there’s two coalitions and they work in concert.  Just with more wealth in the Goons pockets.  That’s probably not too realistic but it’s a helluva lot more than expecting Goons to find someone ELSE they want to install in Delve and keep watch over.

Second there’s a gem from Gevlon.

The propaganda of TEST bankruptcy will end just as fast as “N3 is destroyed by the sov-dropping director”. TEST can no longer bankrupt. Moons can be taken, members not. As long as there are members loging in, there will be ISK in the chest, therefore there will be SRP. As long as there is SRP, there will be PvP-er to fly them. As the funds increase, more will be available for “get your first battleship for free” or “hourly pay for structure grinders” or free slowcats.

No.  What’s more FUCK no.  Depending on the wealthy in your corp or alliance to pay for everything is a bad idea.  It’s a historically bad idea.  Now that’s not saying I don’t practice it myself, but I’m leading a corp with 20 guys.  Doing it for an alliance with 500 times that?  TERRIBAD.  FUCKING TERRIBAD.  It’s a band-aid on an amputated arm.  It’s one thing to do this for a single war.  It’s another to try to make this policy.  The idea that “Moons can be taken, members not” is ridiculous.  Members don’t have to be taken.  They just have to lose interest.  They just have to see their hard earned isk wasted by untalented leadership.  They just have to leave the corp.  That moon will pump out it’s mud as long as you hook a POS up to it.  Depending on your members is like betting on the Battlestar Galactica.  Rooting for it?  Sure.  Betting on it?  Fuck no.  That bitch is going DOWN.  The other side has reliable sources of income and replenishment.  Galactica has only what it brought with it and what it can scrounge on the way.  Take out the Hollywood element and who wins?

So let’s put these together.  TEST has a very precarious, undependable strategy that simply begs to fall apart under pressure, looks like a really tempting target, especially after all the fighting that’s already happened right? Not so fast speedy.  The main opponents aren’t TEST.  They are ennui, boredom, and motivation.  Why the hell do Goons want Delve?  What is going to keep them interested in fighting hundreds of structures that don’t shoot back, night after night, for months?  How will they keep their members in a region SO far from home for a goal that probably doesn’t interest any of them at all?

So my money is on Goons doing no more than harassing TEST.  MAYBE taking a staging station or two.  Which is good for TEST because anyone who thinks you can win a war by depending on the kindness of strangers is kidding themselves.

I’m using it every time I can

Fountain Flip Flop

So with the battle of 6V over TEST has effectively lost any realistic hope of holding Fountain.  They can launch strikes.  Well, they will launch strikes, and they will whelp at least one more CFC fleet because this is EvE and that kind of thing happens, but Fountain will belong to whoever CFC hands it to and the R64 moons will go to Goons and their croniest of cronies.  And yes that’s a word now.  Deal with it.

TEST will retreat to Delve and face harassment from CFC, but no actual invasion.  Delve is rather difficult to invade, not terribly worthwhile from what I understand of it’s wealth as far as an ALLIANCE is concerned, although it does have decent enough ratting and such to keep the nullbears quite happy.  This hasn’t been a violation of the “Big Blue Doughnut” (actually more or a big blue crescent but whatevs) but it does represent a power shift.  PL will go where the money is, I was surprised that they backed TEST to begin with and I will be surprised even more if they continue to work with them after this war.  I’m not sure they’ll head straight to Goons though.  I think they will want to see who ALL the movers and shakers are with the moon rebalance.  They might head where there’s more action at first.  In the long run, however, they will settle back into their erratic orbit with Goons and CFC as a whole.

Ironically we might see MORE supers in space once this desultory war winds down.   As the coalitions fall away from each other the opportunities to use the Supers might look more and more tempting, especially as Goons grind down the last chunk of structures.  Long-term I think Booda has to look at what he wants to do Vs. TEST alliance’s actual capabilities.  He should have a really good idea of what they can actually do, how far they can project what kinds of power, and for how long.  Now he has to match that with things that are fun and interesting and bring morale up.

CFC meanwhile can start hoarding money again.  Also they can send me some 😀

Fly Dangerous.

I’m using it every time I can

The Danger of Big Men

Currently there’s a bit of a row going on with Men’s Wearhouse, which ousted its founder over… something anyway.  The company is being pretty cagey about it.  The man literally built the company himself.  He’s been the heart, soul, and visual representation of the company for longer than I’ve been alive.  Ousting him has given a body blow to the stockholders, and created a lot of unnecessary drama.  Fortunately it’s a robust, well put together company with plenty of names on the board, but it is pretty clear that ousting Zimmer was not a brilliant move.

So how does this apply to EvE?  Let’s talk about the Mittani.  He has become the face of Goonswarm.  Without him the councils that run the swarm would just be another faceless mass lacking charisma and influence.  The Mittani wears a mask allowing him to be “Big Brother” for the swarm.  They love him, they are excited by his presence, and they are strengthened by his speaking, even if it’s anything but brilliant.

So… what happens if he leaves?  What happens if he burns out HARD on EvE?  What happens if his wife gets jealous of the real mistress?  What happens if he tires of Goons but not EvE?  This isn’t Darius Johnson.  This is Mittens.  This is THE goon.  Losing him would be bad.  Having him turn on them, as George Zimmer is turning on Men’s Wearhouse, would be a disaster.  Partisans for Mittens would be torn, people that just wanted to be Goons would be angered at how he’s now killing the “brand”

Big men offer a huge benefit, but letting them get TOO big, letting them become the brand as it were, puts the brand in danger.  The Mittani represents a huge resource for the goons, but as a lone leader he represents a weak point.  He has to be Mittens all the time, he has to wear the mask, maintain the aura, and show up for the dog and pony shows.

This was shown up recently when Mittens declared war on TEST and then went to E3.  He had a blast but the spin machine spun out of control, fleets were whelped and things just didn’t look right.  Without the conductor waving his wand the orchestra played badly.  Goonswarm needs to take a look at its face.  Internally they have a council, they have leaders other than Mittens, but there’s no face but Mittens.  He’s like a Big Brother who can royally fuck up, get drunk, hammer himself and get exorcised.  He’s a Wizard of Oz who doesn’t even have much of a curtain at the moment.

The problem is figuring out how to do a better organization.  Go with a Troika?  Nominate a successor and have him stand up a bit more?  Have the council members step up a bit more and really water things down?  It’s not an easy solution.  There’s downsides everywhere.  I know one thing though, Goons needs to look long and hard at their options right now and prevent a disaster down the road.

I’m using it every time I can

Making the Best of your Molehills

Mittens came back from E3 to find his minions happily wagging their tails and jumping up and down on the doorstep pleased with the steaming pile of something they’d left on his bed.  Some of the wiser minions had something to be proud about apparently, but there was plenty of crap to deal with.

Mittens came back from E3 needed to flog the success they’ve had, and to make light of the rather difficult issues they faced.  He had to convince his minions to keep fighting the war the goons way.  Careless of battles, careful of objectives.  He had to get his FCs operating in a more disciplined fashion, he had to get his network of agents working in a coordinated fashion.

Mittens came back, and issued a long statement.  He talked about the successes they’d had.  He talked about the way goons fight.  He talked about the goals and the strategies, and he set a new narrative.  His partisans will back it (see HERE wfor details) his detractors will laugh at it (do I have to tell you how to find Reddit?)

There’s a lot to the goonswarm way of war.  A whole lot.  It’s not glorious in its early stages, it’s rough, it’s ugly, and it can be demoralizing.  To keep it going the goons have to be cajoled, prodded, bribed, and sometimes all but forced into the fight.  Fortunately they have wordsmiths, FCs, PILES of isk, and propagandists to spare.

Mittens has gained a handle on the narrative.  He’s picked up the mantle of leadership and can now bring his own personal aura to bear on the situation.  Maybe going to E3 wasn’t brilliant for The Mittani, but it didn’t end the war.  Now the goons have to get to work.  They have to control the narrative, they have to call their shots, and they have to break up the coalition facing them, loose as it is.  They’ve made progress with BL, they’ve hammered on some of the issues with TEST’s policies, and they’ve done their “We don’t want the systems themselves anyway” routine.  Now to see if they can make it play out the way they want.

I’m using it every time I can