War

[MahrinSkel]

That's a little bit of a...self absorbed, way to look at it.  The Goons were a reflection of a huge surge in the playerbase of the game, but not the source of it (the game went from 100K to 200K in a year).  This meant a lot of people trying to go out into 0.0 in cruisers and being slaughtered in droves by the already-present forces, who could field battleships in quantity.  Even if the newcomers could get in BS, they were out-ranged, out-gunned, and out-tanked.

This led to an attitude in *some* alliances that SP > Everything, and BoB definitely went down that road, recruiting only the most senior players.  But the real source of BoB's power was the feudalistic "business model", with renters to turn the space into fungible resources and subordinate PvP forces to keep them from having to be *everywhere*.  This let them stage extended wars, and still be fielding top of the line ships when their opponents were scraping the bottom of the barrel.

BoB's struggling for 3 reasons:

1) They took too much space.  They could easily bounce from Period Basis to Fountain to Querious, around their home space, playing fireman.  But Paragon Soul, Feythabolis, etc, were a long way from home.  They couldn't operate in both theatres, even with local alliances to hold the day-to-day.

2) The enemy caught up, organizationally.  RSF and D2 were essentially riffs on the feudalistic theme, and IAAAC was an embryonic version of the same.  D2 was a paper tiger, without the spine of hard-core PvP focus.

3) Growth, over-extension, and the EVOL theft, left them unable to make the transition to JB-dominated strategy and logistics.  Faced with needing to lay down a chain of JB's from Fountain to Omist, they froze.

There were contributing factors, MC losing respect for them because they refused to adapt their tactics for a post-Titan dominance battlefield didn't help, failing to stand by their deals with subordinates and allies and squeezing blood from stones economically didn't help, but most were largely a consequence of those core three reasons.  EVOL's looting left them without the margin to forgive debts or rents, or pass up an opportunity to turn an ally into a renter.  Lack of funds contributed to the failure to build a JB network, which contributed to the logistics problems, which burnt out the titan pilots on playing taxi, which left MC high and dry, which....

--Dave

[Sparky]

the EVOL theft

Probably wrong here but I understood the EVOL theft was only in the order of 30bn or so?  A fortune for an individual but nothing to cripple an old corp like Evol.  Even the newbie goons with their ultra-capitalist distributed wealth absorbed about that much without blinking.

Ohh, and did I mention they're arrogant? 

Understatement of the year.  As bad as the Goon posts are on COAD now (which is pretty fucking annoying), Bob was worse.  They were like the Yankees, if the Yankees came to your house and spit on your children every time they beat your team.  I still don't think BoB understands how much the larger community dislikes them, or why.

Everyone (rightly) gives BoB a lot of shit for being arrogant but I think the community played their part kissing BoB's arse for a couple of years.  You could accuse the goons of getting there too, I wish they'd ban Eve-o posting again.  At least they'd laugh at and mock the ass kissing.

[Fordel]

BoB has always been sore winners, that is the source of most of the anti BoB hate. They didn't just beat you, they completely embarrassed you. Shamed you into not even trying anymore. The worst part was they mostly did it in a semi-passive aggressive fashion, under the pretext of 'civil discourse' on the recent events.

That is the real difference for me between BoB and the Goons.

BoB are assholes justifying themselves by 'being better then you'.

Goons are assholes, without justification, 'yea were assholes, lawl pew pew'.

I can accept assholes being assholes because they are just assholes... but it annoys me when people are assholes because they're "supposed" to be assholes. It's like the laugh track version of being an asshole. It makes it worse then just being an actual asshole somehow.




Mahrin: Did you just agree with me using different words? I don't understand your point.

[MahrinSkel]

Mahrin: Did you just agree with me using different words? I don't understand your point.

I just agreed with you without giving Goons nearly as much credit (they were a tiny part of the growth) or BoB nearly as much blame (the russians, *especially* RA, were even more hostile to newbies to begin with, for example, and didn't accept the Goons even as allies until well after you were graduating to T2-fitted BS).  BoB's crime was in being effective, arrogant, eager to smack, and *speaking english*.

--Dave

[MahrinSkel]

Probably wrong here but I understood the EVOL theft was only in the order of 30bn or so?  A fortune for an individual but nothing to cripple an old corp like Evol.  Even the newbie goons with their ultra-capitalist distributed wealth absorbed about that much without blinking.

It was much more than that, there was nearly 100B in POS bits *alone*, from the list I saw.  Evol was entirely communistic and the thief had a lot of access, the only assets that weren't stolen were the BPO's and the ships in the member's hangars.

--Dave

[Fordel]

Mahrin: Did you just agree with me using different words? I don't understand your point.

I just agreed with you without giving Goons nearly as much credit (they were a tiny part of the growth) or BoB nearly as much blame (the russians, *especially* RA, were even more hostile to newbies to begin with, for example, and didn't accept the Goons even as allies until well after you were graduating to T2-fitted BS).  BoB's crime was in being effective, arrogant, eager to smack, and *speaking english*.

--Dave

Tiny part of the overall growth maybe, but for 0.0 players, Goons were a huge burst of people. Hard pressed to find a time when more new blood was put into 0.0 outside of the games actual release.

I think the difference between my view point and yours Mahrin, is you were/are an established 0.0 player. I never was. Though I do my fair share of cheerleading for the RSF at times, I was never a member of Goonfleet, or any 0.0 organization. I was one of those new players that came into the game mid stride, saw the bullshit that was 0.0 and left after 3-6 months of on again, off again play time/skill training. I looked at all the crap needed to 'make it' to 0.0 went fuck it, and went back to playing WoW etc.

So from my PoV, and I'm gonna assume there are way more people in EVE who have similar experiences to mine then the average 0.0 player, seeing a bunch of retarded monkeys sit at a million PC's and actually piss off all the established players, was a really big deal. It didn't help my play experience directly, since I wasn't part of the Goon community, but it gave me a little bit of amusement and kept me interested in the game long after I stopped playing it. Seeing someone, anyone, break the mold of the game that was put forth for such a long time, was and is really interesting.


You could argue that RA has made all the same mistakes BoB has, you could argue they paid for it as well, were nearly made totally insignificant and wiped off 0.0 at one point. What you can also say though, is RA adapted and accepted the game had changed.

I can't speak on the specific time line, but I want to say more goons were still without BShips compared to those with them when they teamed up with RA and TCF.

[Yoru]

The Goons may have been a minority of the "new playerbase" of Eve, but they were certainly the loudest and most visible representatives of the New Guard skirmishing with and displacing the Old Guard. Their early victories were far more symbolic than they were effective - Goliath was no longer the invincible giant.

[Fordel]

Yoru said, what I was trying to say, but better and with fewer words.

[MahrinSkel]

It wasn't just Goons, not *all* of the old guard 0.0 alliances kept out the newbies.  I joined FIX around the time GS was founded, a few months later we lost the CODA war and FIX spun off PURE and Outbreak, all three grew by recruiting and integrating younger characters (nearly 2000 of them).

Very few of the alliances that existed back then still exist, and there are far more alliances now than there used to be.  As well, it was normal that most members of 0.0 alliances didn't actually live out there, they ran missions in Empire and came out for action every once in a while (this was a major issue in the aftermath of CODA, all the people with very few entries on the killboard because they almost never left Empire, all of this was before X13 and Privateers).  I'd say, at a guess, that Goons proper are no more than 10% of the growth in the real 0.0 population, and probably less.

--Dave

[Yoru]

It wasn't just Goons, not *all* of the old guard 0.0 alliances kept out the newbies.  I joined FIX around the time GS was founded, a few months later we lost the CODA war and FIX spun off PURE and Outbreak, all three grew by recruiting and integrating younger characters (nearly 2000 of them).

And note that FIX, PURE and 0utbreak are still alive and thriving, whereas those that have failed to adapt are hurting, if not extinct, although not fully because of this factor alone.

Thing is, the story of the young upstarts beating their snotty, arrogant superiors has a far more romantic ring to it than an established group slowly adapting to cope with changing circumstances. (Sure, you see that, but that's more often framed as a redemption story.)

People like a good story of that nature, and the Goons are vocal enough to create the surrounding mythos necessary to perpetuate one.

[MahrinSkel]

Thing is, the story of the young upstarts beating their snotty, arrogant superiors has a far more romantic ring to it than an established group slowly adapting to cope with changing circumstances. (Sure, you see that, but that's more often framed as a redemption story.)

People like a good story of that nature, and the Goons are vocal enough to create the surrounding mythos necessary to perpetuate one.

When I tell it for propaganda purposes I frame it as one, and it can honestly be told as one.  FIX's death and rebirth as the impenetrable wall of Fortress Querious has become a solid part of the Eve mythos, not as prominent as the stories of BoB vs. Goons, but a solid minor character with its own identity.

However, as a designer and strategic analyst, I look at the dynamics, not the narrative.  Not that the narrative is completely irrelevant to the dynamics, like any alliance FIX's "buy-in" to its own mythos is a key ingredient to converting the mythos from make-believe to (virtual) reality.  We stand firm under siege because that's what FIX *does*, what everyone expects of themselves and their corp-mates.

--Dave

EDIT: Forgot to say, at one level FIX was the first victim of the changing demographics and increasing population of 0.0, CODA (Coalition of Dead Alliances, BTW) came about because for the first time there was no unpopulated areas of 0.0 for territorial losers to move to, every piece of it was not claimed just in name, but the claims were backed by guns.  If those remnants wanted space, they were going to have to take it from someone.  Since their other common attribute was their hatred for BoB, and Querious looked to SA like a good launching point for their real objective (BoB in Delve), we were also the first victims of the BoB backlash.

[Simond]

BoB have made a number of what, in retrospect, were fairly major errors:

The Smoske debacle (AKA dragging up a supposed friend's corpse to use as an excuse to attack the Goons). Net result: Goons want BoB dead*, and also changes the Directorate's stance from "We have to try and get along with the rest of the playerbase" to "Bugger them if they can't take a joke". Yes, believe it or not, prior to this there was a covert policy from the higher-ups of going along with the unwritten rules, playing nice with the old-school alliances, and so on. That lasted approximately ten seconds past BoB's declaration of attempted goonocide and LV et. al. joining in the dogpile. As well as cementing the Goons (and friends) vs the rest mentality, it also lead to The Mittani's leash being completely removed, the formation of the RSF ("Who can we turn to, now that we've been demonized by most of the game? Oh hey, RA is hated by everybody as well and they're under siege by the same cockbags trying to camp us into Syndicate. Sup, tovariches?"), and (eventually) CAOD was left to the tender mercies of the finest forum-warriors/wreckers this side of /b/.

Attacking ASCN. MC had it right on this one - BoB should have allied with ASCN, if only so that there was an extant alliance in the south rather than leaving a power vaccuum which the RSF was able to take advantage of.

Over-reliance on supercapitals, especially Titans. This one is pretty obvious, really - if you're winning fleet battles by a handful of pilots pres butaning at zero risk, not only are you going to be screwed once that ability is removed but also the rest of your pvp pilots are going to be getting bored, discouraged and rusty.

The whole pet thing. The downside of renting space to alliances who wouldn't otherwise be able to defend 0.0 is that if they come under attack, you're obliged to go and defend them (because, well, they can't defend 0.0). RSF doesn't have pets, it has allies which it gives space to, with the understanding that "We'll try to help you if we're not tied up elsewhere, but ultimately it's your space".

Screwing over MC. Hiring them, asking for a pan to attach IAC, then ignoring said plan to run back to Feyth so that BoB could watch RISE's holdings burn. Agreeing to help MC evacuate their former northern holdings, then not doing it. Demanding standard pet rental from an alliance who were/are friends with MC and only came down south to help MC out. And that's only the things we know about - God only knows how long this sort of thing has been going on.


*Prior to this, some of Goonswarm were wondering if BoB were going to intervene on our side in the D2 battle. No, really.

Edit:

the EVOL theft

Probably wrong here but I understood the EVOL theft was only in the order of 30bn or so?  A fortune for an individual but nothing to cripple an old corp like Evol.  Even the newbie goons with their ultra-capitalist distributed wealth absorbed about that much without blinking.

Yeah, you probably want to add another zero on to the end of that amount. Plus EVOL are (were?) a communist corp - all assets were held by the corp, ship losses were replaced by the corp, members have very limited personal resources, etc, etc. Somebody ups and leaves with a large chunk of the corp's wealth? The corp is screwed...at least, until they can ransom it back or replace it.

[Sparky]

Yeah before "there are no goons" the general consensus was admiration for what BoB had achieved tinged with a little fear.  I do believe the directorate even had some talks regarding some sort of relationship but obviously that fell through.  How different the universe would look now if BoB hadn't chosen goons for one of their little road trips.  I don't recall anything covert about the play nice policy though; no smack in local, no posting on Eve-o, no scamming with mains and so forth.  They've kind of thrown the baby out with the bathwater there, I still think some moderation of the lolbuttes would go a long way when it comes to flipping pets and whatnot.

[Arthur_Parker]

It's interesting to look back on how CAOD has changed.

Link

Good morning,

Recently I made the promise to bring the full stats of our aggressions against GoonSwarm to the forums.

I now fulfill this promise.


The Result
The dates are from 28-07-2006 to 18-08-2006.

BoB Kills against GoonSwarm:
Assault Frigate 11
Battlecruiser 11
Battleship 44
Bomber 5
Capsule 2,316
Carrier 2
Covert Ops Frigate 9
Cruiser 195
Destroyer 43
Elite Battlecruiser 1
Elite Cruiser 2
Elite Destroyer 2
Elite Industrial 0
Frigate 2,115
Heavy Assault Cruiser 3
Industrial 27
Interceptor 37
Mining Barge 3
Noobie Ship 514
Shuttle 624
Support Cruisers 1
Total Isk Value 7,440,471,176 isk

BoB Losses against GoonSwarm:
Assault Frigate 22
Battlecruiser 2
Battleship 6
Bomber 1
Capsule 39
Carrier 0
Covert Ops Frigate2
Cruiser 5
Destroyer 2
Elite Battlecruiser 1
Elite Cruiser 6
Elite Destroyer 9
Elite Industrial 1
Frigate 6
Heavy Assault Cruiser 12
Industrial 2
Interceptor 60
Mining Barge 0
Noobie Ship 0
Shuttle 1
Support Cruisers 0
Total Isk Value 1,300,263,840 isk

During those times we have completely held S-U, the very heart of the GoonSwarm, every day and every night without a problem.

We have removed the GoonSwarm Industrial Backbone, without a problem.

The main corps, GoonFleet and GoonWaffe have split, scattered and ran from us. When they came, they came with no conviction and were slaughtered.

At the start of this week, the only corporation in GoonSwarm with any pvp honour, The Forsakened Companions, left GoonSwarm.

We wish them nothing but the best of luck in their future travels and hope they find what they are looking for in Eve.


The Future of GoonSwarm
SO... what next?

Are we going to continue camping S-U for the remainder of our lives?
No.

Are GoonSwarm dead then!
No.

Are GoonSwarm ever going to be allowed to build up in any way in 0.0 space again?
No.

For the moment, we are leaving syndicate but we will continue to monitor the GoonSwarm and should we feel that they have done anything of note in the game, we will destroy it.

I am sure that some of those remaining GoonSwarm members will be rejoicing at having survived this long against us but I can only ask you were you have been recently.

Keep watching Goons, because we will.

We will be back, with gangs, with fleets, with BoB.

We command your game now. As long as you remain in GoonSwarm, we make you play our way and nothing you say will really convince yourself that this isn't true.

All Too Easy.

p.s. thanks to digi for the topic title <3

p.p.s. to the flamers and trolls not involved, I wouldn't waste your breath replying you'll just be ignored. Serious questions/comments only thanks.

dbp

This is just one post, yet it reflects a lot of what's wrong with an alliance like BoB in a pvp game.  In the above we have kill/death ratio bragging, pvp honour, industrial backbone talk, chest beating and the whole thing reeks of a smug superior attitude.

Nothing about the BoB alliance is new, they recruited the oldest and therefore highest skilled/richest characters formed an alliance and spent years destroying and pushing other alliances around with better fleets and forum propaganda based in part on a spy network.  It's interesting to read The Mitanni's posts from the time period of the above post, he said exactly how BoB would act weeks in advance, even down to predicting when the "BoB Victory" thread would be posted.

The situation in CAOD now is the exact opposite, the things that BoB valued are now the source of numerous running jokes.  The RSF spy network far exceeds anything they ever dreamed about, their attitude problem has resulted in being vastly outnumbered and they can barely even post in CAOD anymore without being quoted numerous times.  The decline of the BoB alliance from this point onwards is going to be wonderful entertainment.

[Endie]

Heh, look at dose fuckin shuttles.

[5150]

I'll just chime in here on the 'noob access to 0.0' topic

Before I went pirate full time (empire wars are so much more fun) my previous main and his corp looked at getting into a 0.0 alliance. The [short] list of options we found publically available info for (i.e. satisfy the criteria and join - rather than the aforementioned 'old boys' network) was thus.

Forsaken Empire - some large (for a 10 man industrial/mission/ratting corp) ISK per month figure PLUS 2 dread ready pilots (presumably with their own ships) within 2 weeks of joining!

ISS - 25mil a month and a POS somewhere (and the whole point of our 0.0 entry was to run a POS anyway, lacking the standing to do it in empire)

Everyone else was a case of 'we dont know you - your name isn't down you're not coming in!' but of course there wasn't actually a way of getting known and your name on the list easily without the aforementioned curb kicking....

So we joined ISS and moved to Pure Blind (EC-P8R of all places!!!!! god if we knew what we were letting ourselves in for - TRI before they formed TRI on a daily basis) put our POS down and managed to scrape the 25mil together each month somehow (mainly because we got the only decent moon in like the whole region!). Dont regret it, we learnt alot very very quickly!

Then ISS added moon rental on top as Cassini wasn't making any money for the shareholders and eventually our POS got destroyed about a week before D2 moved in and killed the whole lot anyway (ISSN wasn't in any hurry to come and save us as per our rental _AND_ membership agreement!)

Fortunately we managed to meet some other local ISS corps who, on leaving ISS (prior to the meltdown due to the way ISS operated internally) joined FLA, suddenly our names we're 'on the list' and we all walked into FLA although we had to join the other corp to do it (to get kicked out of Deklein by MC/Storm Armada a little later).

While I dont play that character much now (did I mention empire wars are more fun?) because his name is now 'on the list' he was able to immediately join a corp in Next Level which then joined Dark Horizons, Fallen Souls and [therefore unfortunately] YouWhat (I wasn't happy about the last 2 choices but dont play the guy enough to really care if I had to quit the corp)

its probably worth pointing out that the corps CEO is/was pretty oblivious to the political situation and bailed on YouWhat as soon as someone explained to him what the change to Fallen Souls/YouWhat was about to visit upon him and his members (no it wasn't me) all he wants to do is run his POS chains

[Comstar]

I've woundered how the old F13 corp got into -V-. It got me into 0.0 which was nice to compared to empire. The short time I spent in a low sec corp did not show me any reason to stay in low sec (too many pirates, not enough security to rat or mine even in a group, and if the group was big enough to be secure, it was too big for a low sec system). May I say, I'm glad we got out of -V- just before Goonswarm joined RA.

I know IAC has a reasonable open door for corps, but you still need to be able to run 1+ Large Death Star POS's in a station system (last I heard, though that might be only for an office in a station system) and pay 5mil a month PvP tax. There is a somewhat generous reimbursement policy for non-cap ships though (not as good as GoonSwarms A-Free-Tech1-Frigate-For-Every-Man,Women&Dog).

[Kamen]

BoB have made a number of what, in retrospect, were fairly major errors:
Attacking ASCN. MC had it right on this one - BoB should have allied with ASCN, if only so that there was an extant alliance in the south rather than leaving a power vacuum which the RSF was able to take advantage of.

You provided a lot of the strategic level stupidity of BoB that I was alluding to earlier.  I quoted this particular one because destroying ASCN was IMO the worst of their strategic level buffoonery.

BoB tactical superiority pretty much allowed them them to arrogantly destroy whoever they felt like kicking the snot out of for years.  Prior to the Goons arrival they could overcome bad galactica-political moves and just muddle along blowing shit up.  All the COAD BS aside, they destroyed ASCN for pretty much no other reason than they knew they could do so.  A war with ASCN guaranteed teh Bobbits plenty of carebear in battleship kills to bloat their killlboard and a lot of bragging rights fortaking down a large alliance (carebears or not).

Instead of recognizing that an BoB/ASCN partnership would have been insanely powerful and in their best long term strategic interest Molle opted for for a war, the winning of which actually was detrimental to them.

[Vinadil]

A couple of questions that I have been attempting to answer through context:

1. Who is "The Mittani"?  Is this a network of spies or one actual person who provides insider forum posts and such?

2. COAD?  I am assuming this is some sort of forum; is it separate from EVE-o or just a fancy name for a certain part of it?

[Arthur_Parker]

The Mittani, the leader of the GoonSwarm Intelligence Agency

CAOD, Corporation, Alliance and Organization Discussions
 

[Endie]

The Mittani, the leader of the GoonSwarm Intelligence Agency

Co-leader at best, and in an unofficial capacity.  Ploptops is, of course, the real Eminence Gris in the north: pulling the strings like the puppeteer he truly is.

[Vinadil]

The Mittani, the leader of the GoonSwarm Intelligence Agency

CAOD, Corporation, Alliance and Organization Discussions
 

Thanks for the info.  I wonder if someone could write a histo-fiction book about the EVE universe.  Honestly the storyline here has been as good or better than many sci-fi books I have read.  I suppose the EVE insider attempts to do some of this, but I have never bought it so I don't know for sure what kinds of stories they tell.  But, with just a bit of polish (as the interviewer did with The Mittani), there seems to be a great storyline here that spans several years.

[Yoru]

I've woundered how the old F13 corp got into -V-. It got me into 0.0 which was nice to compared to empire. The short time I spent in a low sec corp did not show me any reason to stay in low sec (too many pirates, not enough security to rat or mine even in a group, and if the group was big enough to be secure, it was too big for a low sec system). May I say, I'm glad we got out of -V- just before Goonswarm joined RA.

We originally bought our way into OSS North (friends of the Goons at the time) for 300m, then left a month later when they lost the space we were going to hold within our first week of membership and they refused to refund our moneys. That kind of got us 'on the map', as in, we had an alliance tag next to our name, and that's really all it takes to get you in the door for negotiations.

After that, I spent a couple hours on the space-horn talking to various alliance leaders in LV, V, KOS and other 0.0 alliances. We came down to something like 4-5 options for the F13 corp, most of which wanted outrageous things from a pubbie empire corp. KOS and V were the most reasonable, at the time, so we had a little internal F13corp vote and then Viin sent off the mail and we got accepted.

I think V, at the time, wanted something like 40m/mo + office fees. About 2-3 months later that got hiked to 600m/mo, so we left. This was right around the time RA was reasserting its hold over Insmother and Cache. V crumbled a few months later.

[JoeTF]

One thing about ASCN partnership - BoB is lacking numbers and not exactly iskies. Partially result of over stretching and making too many enemies at once. (barring great war - is there some other 0.0 conflict running now?).
We could use allies capable of depending their own space, but those are  hard to come by. On the other side - if we had numerical equivalence, this war would be won months ago.

If anything, it's a diplomatic failure, which by itself is direct result of political line we chosed (conquer the entire galaxy).

ASCN was attacked because it seemed to be strongest enemy at moment - but time has showed that they were incapable of defending their own territory and thus would make poor ally.


Regarding getting into 0.0 as a corp - try to put yourself into alliance leader perspective. Main distinction between empire and 0.0 is that 0.0 needs to be protected. and there are some minimal levels of protection - one fifth of POS won't claim sovereignty, 0.1231 of dreadnought won't enter siege. Alliance needs to claim their own space (if it intends to own one) and they cannot do that without deployiong POS. This is where requirements of minimal corp size (or capabilities) come in mind.

[gimpyone]

F13 corp was the most fun I've had in MMOG in a long time 

[Kamen]

One thing about ASCN partnership - BoB is lacking numbers and not exactly iskies. Partially result of over stretching and making too many enemies at once. (barring great war - is there some other 0.0 conflict running now?).

Yes, they just don't get anywhere near the attention of the great war.  And BoB is nowhere near as wealthy as they once were.

We could use allies capable of depending their own space, but those are hard to come by. On the other side - if we had numerical equivalence, this war would be won months ago.

So what?  It's been BoB's choice to be exclusive and arrogant assholes who regard themselves as to good to let any but high skillpoint players in.  Furthermore they shit on those few alliances who will actually let BoB rape them .... and you bitch about your lack of numbers?  It's amazing you have any alliances working with you at all.

If anything, it's a diplomatic failure, which by itself is direct result of political line we chosed (conquer the entire galaxy).

More like diplomatic holocaust.  BoB has managed to piss off almost everyone in the game - including MC.  If they had set as an intentional goal to screw things up diplomatically as much as they possibly could, they couldn't have done this well.  It's as if a petulant three year old was running BoB diplomacy.

ASCN was attacked because it seemed to be strongest enemy at moment - but time has showed that they were incapable of defending their own territory and thus would make poor ally.

Bullshit.  Complete and total bullshit.  Just because ASCN wasn't capable of defending itself against BoB doesn't mean they wouldn't have made a great ally.  By that criteria nobody past or present is worthy of being a BoB ally.  It's a retarded way to look at making political deals.  ASCN/BoB working together as equals might very well have been able to have won Eve.

We'll never know of course, and I'm glad it didn't happen.  The arrogance, diplomatic idiocy, and complete inability to think beyond "let's go kick ass and get kills to show everyone how uber we are with our kill ratios" is exactly what got BoB into the position they are in now.  The ebil BoB empire is doomed because their leadership is great at fleet battles, but complete imbeciles at strategy and politics.  Their ineptitude has finally caught up with them.

[MahrinSkel]

Bullshit.  Complete and total bullshit.  Just because ASCN wasn't capable of defending itself against BoB doesn't mean they wouldn't have made a great ally.  By that criteria nobody past or present is worthy of being a BoB ally.  It's a retarded way to look at making political deals.  ASCN/BoB working together as equals might very well have been able to have won Eve.

For the sake of accuracy and context, I have to point out that ASCN brought it on themselves.  Not just in the rhetoric and diplomatic maneuvers, but in turning on an ally (Tribal Souls) and taking their space just because it was convenient.  Until that point, ASCN and BoB were not in contact, and BoB wasn't even looking in their direction territorally.  There *couldn't* have been a war between BoB and ASCN, they (BoB) would have stayed in the northeast, gone after Catch, or followed the Goons and joined LV against RA 8 months earlier.

--Dave

[Endie]

The ebil BoB empire is doomed because their leadership is great at fleet battles, but complete imbeciles at strategy and politics.  Their ineptitude has finally caught up with them.

I agree with a lot of your analysis, but the "Bob is great at fleet battles" bit just isn't that true any more.

They can still defend systems occasionally if they call out the capital blob under a super-capital shield with fighterbombing lag (I say again: a good use of mechanics and one I wish we could use sooner).  And they can take systems from IAC when allowed in with bad cynojammer strategy and protected by MC.  But reverse the situation and put them down south and they are pretty awful.  Some of their FCs are comically bad, to the extent that hearing who is in charge can be a real morale boost.  Of course, the same goes for us, but we've got rid of or even banned (Appleboy!) our bad ones.

[JoeTF]

Oh dear.

What I wrote is not a bullshit, but the truth. Sit back, calm down and think for a while.

I don't want to get into arguing with you, I will just point few things out:

1) I don't bitch, you were discussing reasons behind BoB recent troubles and I said how it looks from inside. If you're going to scream about "bitching" everytime, there is no point me posting here.

2) BoB dipolomats are one of the best in the game, objectively speaking. To make it so long with agenda being sole owner of the universe is an astounding feat.

3) Point about ASCN was that that they since they fell to BoB so easily (compared to what they were supposed to be), they wouldn't be able to survive an assault from RSF while BoB would be busy elsewhere.
The same cannot be said abour MC or FIX.


PS. In my eyes guys who role play bunch of assholes are much better than guys that simply are assholes.

[Kamen]

Bullshit.  Complete and total bullshit.  Just because ASCN wasn't capable of defending itself against BoB doesn't mean they wouldn't have made a great ally.  By that criteria nobody past or present is worthy of being a BoB ally.  It's a retarded way to look at making political deals.  ASCN/BoB working together as equals might very well have been able to have won Eve.

For the sake of accuracy and context, I have to point out that ASCN brought it on themselves.  Not just in the rhetoric and diplomatic maneuvers, but in turning on an ally (Tribal Souls) and taking their space just because it was convenient.  Until that point, ASCN and BoB were not in contact, and BoB wasn't even looking in their direction territorally.  There *couldn't* have been a war between BoB and ASCN, they (BoB) would have stayed in the northeast, gone after Catch, or followed the Goons and joined LV against RA 8 months earlier.

--Dave

Thank you for providing that.  All factually accurate of course, but you also know it was a fight that BoB welcomed when it came.  A BoB ASCN war never had to happen.  Blame BoB.  Blame ASCN.  Blame both.  I don't care, it was stupid and never should have been fought.  It destroyed ASCN, and winning hurt BoB far more than it helped it.

[Kamen]

Oh dear.

What I wrote is not a bullshit, but the truth. Sit back, calm down and think for a while.

I don't want to get into arguing with you, I will just point few things out:

1) I don't bitch, you were discussing reasons behind BoB recent troubles and I said how it looks from inside. If you're going to scream about "bitching" everytime, there is no point me posting here.

2) BoB dipolomats are one of the best in the game, objectively speaking. To make it so long with agenda being sole owner of the universe is an astounding feat.

3) Point about ASCN was that that they since they fell to BoB so easily (compared to what they were supposed to be), they wouldn't be able to survive an assault from RSF while BoB would be busy elsewhere.
The same cannot be said abour MC or FIX.


PS. In my eyes guys who role play bunch of assholes are much better than guys that simply are assholes.

You're right, there's really no point in debating this.  I'm not going to bother rebutting anything you said.  Believe what you want man.

I would ask you to clarify your PS - Which side is it that you claim is roleplaying assholes?

[Slayerik]

(Stolen from Shiz) Quit argueing over which side of a glory hole is less gay.

Both sides have plenty of assholes to go around. Bob's "Great Diplomacy" only worked for so long because of their extreme cap advantage. Bullying does not equal diplomacy. Sure people are going to avoid fights with the cocky, undefeated champ. Eventually said champ takes a shot and then everyone goes...well shit, this guy can be beat after all. Then they all gang up and pound him. Meh...Fuck the boxing/bully stuff.... Bob fucked up, now they will reap what they have sown for a long time. Tick tock.

[Endie]

Joe, I like that you occasionally post here, and especially that you post here at times when Bob haven't just had something go right (unlike LC).

That said, the idea that Bob has teh ubar diplomats is as daft as the idea that they are still the best at non-supercap-gate-camp fleet fights.  The M.Pire thing is the most obvious example of this; the dealings with MC another.  The fact that Lady Scarlet still has (or had until a few days ago) diplomatic authority in Bob is hilarious: she is as good at diplomacy as she is at fleet commanding.

I know fine well that MC aren't as "fuck bob" as their recent dealings are supposed to display, and that the last legit merc contract they had was Big Blue (firing the guy who screwed Bob and the others on that contract was a big mistake).  Despite that, Bob managed three horrendous cock-ups in their dealings with MC in less than a month.  A real merc organisation would be gone by now.

Which isn't to say that I always agree with GF's diplomacy, but that's another topic.

[Arthur_Parker]

Stahlregen has a new goonfleet video, The Eye of Terror.

[5150]

PS. In my eyes guys who role play bunch of assholes are much better than guys that simply are assholes.

Thats pretty subjective

We can only take your word that they are just 'RPing' assholes and similarly that the other guys are 'genuine' assholes

[Un]fortunately people will make up their own minds on that