War

[Thrawn]

If Goons had known about a BoB SMS system their would of been massive trolls about taking the game too serious and jokes about people running out of meetings because they got a text saying "Shrike is tackled in a Titan.....again."  No matter how casual it is it does come across as something for poeple who take the game too seriuosly. 

[Endie]

Perhaps, but culture is not about the nature of your artifacts so much as the manner in which you use them.

[Arthur_Parker]

I never understand why the enemy alliances constantly expect goons to have some form of accepted pattern of behaviour, when clearly, being retarded and full of contradictions is more annoying (and possibly more effective).

[setar]

Irony is not "on" someone.

Thanks for the correction, always happy to learn as a non-native speaker.

[Endie]

Irony is not "on" someone.

Thanks for the correction, always happy to learn as a non-native speaker.

The mere fact that you are aware of the concept puts you one up on our American cousins.

[Sparky]

If Goons had known about a BoB SMS system their would of been massive trolls about taking the game too serious and jokes about people running out of meetings because they got a text saying "Shrike is tackled in a Titan.....again."  No matter how casual it is it does come across as something for poeple who take the game too seriuosly. 

Well obviously... if Mittani was a heating and ventilation specialist while Molle was a lawyer you'd hear a lot more ambulance chaser jokes.  If SMS is taking them game too seriously then so are forums.  I wish we had SMS so I'd miss fewer hotdrops. 

[Calantus]

I don't know why people are surprised at this. Goons are VERY hardcore at the games they play. Not all goons, but enough goons to matter. The registration system is pretty intense. Then there's the wiki, the map program, and I'm sure various logistics and POS programs to make that go better. The difference between goons and the rest is that it's not expected that people go hardcore. A hardcore guild is not defined by the actions of the members, but by the expectations of the leaders and members. GS could be filled to the brim with hardcore poopsockers all on SMS alerts whenever anything happened and it still wouldn't be hardcore unless the hardcore playstyle was expected or enforced.

[Sir T]

Just stepping back from the discussion for a moment, here is a terribly biased narrative if a Coven 60 man fleet that wandered into Delve today to shoot up these terrible goonies that are getting kicked around Delve.

*Arrives at the PR- Gate in 1DH*

"Ok, everyone on the gate... hmm better send a scout in.. Ok Mr interceptor, you go in an see what its like"

*Inty Jumps. Sound of screaming and shoveling coal into the engine to get more speed, followed by several banging sounds and a loud POP*

"Sir, The interceptor pilot just woke up in our home station and said it might not be such a good idea to jump into there right now"

"Er. Ok lets see if we can get some action somewhere else then"

*Jumps out of 1DH*

"Hey what are those 2 big ships doing there... Hey what are those big bright lights AAAAAAAGH RUN RUN AGGHGHGHGHHH IT BURNS IT BURNS!!!"

1/3 of the Coven fleet escape from Pandemic legion double doomsday and fly to next gate.

"Ok, at least that's over! Let's get the hell out of here!"

*Jumps*

TCF: "Zut Alors! Ze Coven est nouvel target in Delve! Press ze F keys and start zee pew pew tut suite!"

Coven: "AAAAAAAAAAGH!!!"

Lots of popping.

En fin.

Not the most auspicious start to your first Delve incursion really...

[setar]

At least nobody's complaining about a lack of targets for once ;-)

[trevorreznik]

I get that Endie.  The point is, if most alliances tried to do it (and I know a couple who have done that or something similar), they'd sight a big enemy fleet incoming, send out the alert, and get a force that was too small to do any good, and the people who responded would get to spend a few hours doing nothing while the enemy did what they came to do.  They'd then go to the alliance boards and bitch about how the freeloaders that didn't show up were to blame for whatever bad thing happened while they fumed inside POS shields.

Being big allows you to do things in a way that lets you stay casual, and staying casual lets you do things that allow you to grow big.  But there was an intermediate state where you were big enough to need a big chunk of 0.0 territory, but your casual attitude wouldn't have let you keep that territory with those numbers.  You may remember that as when you were in Cloud Ring.  If you hadn't cut the deal you had with RA, you might *still* be going through a constant cycle of going into a 0.0 region, provoking a territorial response and losing it, and as a result losing membership, because I don't care how "casual" you try to pretend to be, getting your ass spanked and sent to the corner like a disruptive child is not fun.  You survived the debacle in Cloud Ring, but you didn't *enjoy* it, and you did lose a big chunk of your numbers as I recall (around 20-25%).

--Dave

There's a lot of truth to this-the capital swarm usergroup in goonfleet.com had a SMS system for a year, and was rarely used.  When it was, the number of additional people brought in by the SMS was often only a handful, if not zero.  It simply wasn't worth the cost of sending out the SMSes and the program became defunct, leading to nohgrivir posting nonstop on gf.com/sa about how smses were needed every night. 

It's working a lot better for PR- for size reasons-there's a ton more active goons, and it's also open to the entire membership since it's free of cost (using emails>cell phone thing).  With the much bigger pool it's actually effective.


And yeah, the guys that sign up are the hardcore guys as it is.  Surprisingly, GS doesn't have that many dedicated hardcore guys, at least among the FC usergroup.  I'll specify hardcore to mean simply willing and able to do alarm clock ops and play on weekend evenings.  For long periods of time, GS didn't have any FCs that would do this, because the only ones that do are Scavok and DBRB, and that's unlike any other alliance I'm aware of.

[tmp]

A hardcore guild is not defined by the actions of the members, but by the expectations of the leaders and members.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with that. To use the most obvious example -- BoB in its current shape is hardly perceived as a 'hardcore guild' no matter how much their leaders and membership expect and wish it was the case. This is because of how the leaders and members actually act. Actions carry much more impact than words, and if you have say, group of dedicated miners then it does not really matter if they acknowledge (or deny) that through morale blog or whatever. At the end of day they are dedicated miners, though maybe with some self-acceptance issues.

[Calantus]

A hardcore guild is not defined by the actions of the members, but by the expectations of the leaders and members.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with that. To use the most obvious example -- BoB in its current shape is hardly perceived as a 'hardcore guild' no matter how much their leaders and membership expect and wish it was the case. This is because of how the leaders and members actually act. Actions carry much more impact than words, and if you have say, group of dedicated miners then it does not really matter if they acknowledge (or deny) that through morale blog or whatever. At the end of day they are dedicated miners, though maybe with some self-acceptance issues.

I'd say the mining corp was a corp containing hardcore players, unless you only got accepted if you were hardcore or were kicked if you weren't. BoB is a hardcore alliance with a lack of hardcore players at present.

[MahrinSkel]

If Goons had known about a BoB SMS system their would of been massive trolls about taking the game too serious and jokes about people running out of meetings because they got a text saying "Shrike is tackled in a Titan.....again."  No matter how casual it is it does come across as something for poeple who take the game too seriuosly. 

You don't get it: Goon logic for forum fights is not "Is this argument consistent with our principles?" or "Is this true?" or even "Do any of these words belong in the same sentence together?"  It's "Does this piss off the other guys and/or make them splutter in confusion?"  If you are trying to get them to explain what they said, they already have you hooked and from then on you're just digging in deeper.

In the memes of a long-gone era: You have been trolled.  Hope this helps.  Have a nice day.

--Dave

[Arthur_Parker]

Delve update.

[Simond]

450+ people currently in PR-, 99% friendly (i.e. Goonswarm & allies).
KenGoku and -A- were supposed to be attempting a breakout post-downtime, you see. 

[Miasma]

We bridged to 49- to attack them and some towers, they tried to slowboat to pr- but we just jumped back and cut them off again.  Huge fleets all over delve right now on both sides.

[setar]

450+ people currently in PR-, 99% friendly (i.e. Goonswarm & allies).
KenGoku and -A- were supposed to be attempting a breakout post-downtime, you see. 

Uh. We were? There wasn't even a CTA. Nobody ever tells me anything these days.

[trevorreznik]

450+ people currently in PR-, 99% friendly (i.e. Goonswarm & allies).
KenGoku and -A- were supposed to be attempting a breakout post-downtime, you see. 

Uh. We were? There wasn't even a CTA. Nobody ever tells me anything these days.

-a- is the bogeyman in many of the goon ops

boogaboogabooga

[Endie]

-A- were there.  Maybe they didn't tell you, but they certainly told others in your alliance.  Check the KB to verify that, although most seem not to have made it onto either kills or losses.  Not a huge turnout from them, which I had generously thought was down to them holding a large capfleet offline ready for a hotdrop, but perhaps Kenny repeatedly calling for breakouts which fizzle out is a discouraging factor vOv.

I don't really get it: it's startlingly obvious how Kenny could get a large proportion of their 230 trapped capitals out for the (admittedly absolutely certain) sacrifice of a couple of dozen in a certain other location, and then we'd have to stop running around hellpurging Delve with unsupported cap fleets.  But I suppose that fragile morale and an obsession with tactical rather than strategic imperatives makes that unpalatable to them.

Anyway, as soon as it became obvious that Kenny and Exe were seriously attempting to do a breakout numbers spiralled.  650 friendlies on teamspeak is one measure.  By the time they slowboated to PR- from 49- we'd bridged a couple of our fleets back there to wait for them.  We have a lot of bubble art in PR-, like Kuzim Blacky'all's snowman on the NOL gate, that we are eager to defend.  Neutrals who want to see the exhibition should remember to spam the password "DON'T SHOOT ME I'M GAY" repeatedly in local to avoid destruction (we get a couple of naeutral pubbies a day falling for that and livening up the camp as it moves into day eleven).

We let the Boat down, however: he asked for a hundred-person cap fleet, but all we could come up with was one closer to two hundred. 

[setar]

I think you are confusing a spontaneous 'let's go to Delve' op with anything that would have been planned as the original post indicated. And what is so difficult to understand? I'd lost interest and the will to fight as well after way things went. You 'won', it is as simple as that.

Yeah, maybe BOB will regroup at some stage, somewhere. Bit of house cleaning and a new target. But if you honestly expect them to pull together all of a sudden and start defending you are playing a different game then I am -- or are playing on the old 'but Goons are horrible at this game' meme which few even believed in when you _were_ all in Rifters a few years ago.

[Jayce]

It's true, never doubt the power of the Rifter.

Also, I think all this allowance you see goons giving Kenny for making some final stand somewhere, or suddenly coming back, is a collective disbelief that it's been this easy. 

Even with all systems set to Sov 1, one would think that one of the most venerable and ancient (don't forget "omnipotence itself") alliances could put something together.  Instead it's been very workaday for our dread fleet. 

[Phildo]

Kenny have repeatedly throw 30-ish HAC man HAC gangs at the area around PR- and the only successes they have are catching people flying solo between PR- and 319.  Lady Scarlet is often there flaunting her new-found freedom of movement.

Setar, Trevor, your allies in Delve had apparently been told you were coming to help.  That's all I know about it, though.

[setar]

Phildo, no reason not to believe that is the case -- all _I_ was saying nobody told the grunts in advance that we were supposed to come to the rescue :)

[Sir T]

AAA had 100 people in fleet and Titan bridged it in to support a Kennie and Barbie fleet at their form up time, which shows some preparation to me. *shrug*

Anyway, it was the best showing by the opposition in a while, but to be honest their move to PR- seemed to take a while, almost as though they were unsure of what they were doing. We had time to drop the first tower using mostly unsieged dreads and battleships, and had time to get another bridge back to PR- in time to shred the initial few hostiles that came in, at which time they fled.

I can't comment in the initial battle where we came in as I was thrown into a deep safe when the cyno went boom as I was bridging in, but it seems to have been a lot of fun for all concerned.

[Endie]

so from my DED messages it looks like BDCI are taking XGH, Setar?  Is that because you've been allocated it in the long run, or are you just the only people organised enough to arrange to get towers there  ?  It's good space by Angels standards: 100-odd belts of decent truesec (almost all with arkonor), dead-end and excellent for cap production.  Horrible logistics, of course, but you know that from attacking them for so long!

Edit: also, to others, if Setar says AAA had no pre-planned call-up to help then it's probably reasonable and fair to assume he's telling the truth.

[setar]

No idea about the long term plan, Endie. From my perspective it's simply a case of us having to do logistics as well; BDCI is a new arrival and so far had not to contribute to the JB system or other logistics chores. The corp itself usually doesn't rely on access to 0.0 to generate ISK, and I don't think anyone is under any illusion of being able to hold on to all of this space for any length of time, particularly once you guys are done mopping up Delve. All I can hope for is that it will be limited to GS vs -A- rather than the whole bandwagon of TCF/NC/PL. Enough folks seem to be ready to reset GBC already just to be able to turn Delve into some kind of free-for-all, though that's bloody unlikely to happen.

But in the meantime maybe we could compare notes? My info on good locations in Period Basis vs your information on Tenerifs :) ?

[MahrinSkel]

Edit: also, to others, if Setar says AAA had no pre-planned call-up to help then it's probably reasonable and fair to assume he's telling the truth.

KenZoku is stuck on a fork when it comes to morale.  If they keep letting Goons act at will, it will get harder and harder to rally the troops, especially the GBC folks who, between KenZoku's poor performance and the drama bombs in the director forum archive, seem completely willing to let them fall and to hell with the consequences of having the Goons for neighbors.  But if they make a significant effort and fail, the loss of morale won't be a trickle, it will be a flood.

As it stands, there's not going to be much of a place to stand from which to try and stage a rally, and probably not many left that really want to try.  Something truly astounding would have to happen for any significant change in the course of events.

Setar, I think the Goons are completely serious when they say they aren't coming back.  Trying to hold areas so far apart is impractical, and vacating Delve would just give BoB a chance to rebuild.

--Dave

[Endie]

Yeah, I think that if we were to find ourselves in Tenerifis then Stain, Atlas and whatever kenny successor alliance comes along would swiftly cause trouble for us back home in Delve.  Heh: "back home in Delve" sounds funny.  I know it is unfashionable but I will say it again: I honestly cannot believe that there will be any appetite for an attack on AAA holdings so soon after the 23/7 grind of taking Delve.

And sorry, Setar, but I was a Detorid boy.  The only significant time I ever spent in Tenerifis, except for the odd transit via jump-bridges, was the month in 9-9 vs Bob.  But what I can tell you is that some bastard will always mine G-Don clean of all high-ends on both spawn days for their personal titan project.  You will then never hear again of that titan.  If you are lucky.

And, thankfully, I don't think LOVEU will stay in TPAR for longer than it takes to secure it - we now have sov a day earlier than I planned, as DICE seem to have messed up on two towers - and hand it on.  The truesec is poop, and we have a Delve constellation, now.

[setar]

What are the chances of everyone just twiddling their thumbs? We will always have conflicts in Eve -- so the question is does the huge powerblock that is NC/PL/TCF/GS and friends break up and start shooting each other out of boredom, or do they go for the remaining large alliances?

-A- is a natural target. GS/TCF have scores to settle, PL will certainly be looking for fights, and with Razor apparently setting in Querious they are all basically on -A-'s doorstep. I certainly do not expect an attack in Tenerifs, but an assault on Catch would force us to concentrate on that area or, if we are getting completely outblobbed, relocate to another area of the map. One way or another it would not make sense to deploy significant infrastructure in the newly vacated GS territories.

And agree on the KenZoku analysis. There is absolutely nothing they can do at this stage, even if they wanted to. My initial call shortly after the alliance got disbanded was 'they will not recover from this'. It undid everything they built with one click, and with their ongoing morale problems since the MAX campaign the writing was on the wall. In a way the Ex-MC in me is cheerful as BOB members were laughing at us when we were in the same situation -- outblobbed and camped into PB; at the same time it feels empty as I was actually looking forward to a multi-front war that might have been more fun.

[Endie]

If there is to be a fight, I suspect that UNL may be one key to what happens next.  We despise Atlas and are fond of UNL, who stood by us.

[Quinton]

What are the chances of everyone just twiddling their thumbs? We will always have conflicts in Eve -- so the question is does the huge powerblock that is NC/PL/TCF/GS and friends break up and start shooting each other out of boredom, or do they go for the remaining large alliances?

Long term, I agree -- we'll see a lot of interesting changes happening in the wake of Goons moving to Delve, other folks taking our old homeland in the south, and interests shifting and so on.  I don't have nearly enough of a grasp on the macro level politics to predict what'll happen.

I think Endie's right though -- the Delve campaign is an unbelievable effort and we've got to see it through Goonswarm sov3 and beyond before it's anywhere near "done".  I'd bet that there will be a lot of bike riding going on as it wraps up and people need to recover from all that work for a bit.

[setar]

Sure; wasn't thinking short-term, but you can only ride bicycles for so long before boredom kicks in. The part that irritates me personally: given the large-scale politics there is nobody left to take advantage of that exhaustion while you consolidate your hold in Delve. Ideally any attacker would use the window while you are still setting up jump bridges, waiting for Sov4 etc, but that of course would bring the whole blue list back to Delve in a hurry and, once again, result in few memorable fights -- if any at all.

At the other end of the spectrum you have groups like Outbreak, Minor Threat and others who, when not in drama mode, tend to have fun, but have virtually no impact on the 0.0 landscape. And until CCP gets around to change the damn sov system we'll be stuck with those two extremes, I'm afraid.

[Quinton]

And until CCP gets around to change the damn sov system we'll be stuck with those two extremes, I'm afraid.

Yeah, I think pretty much everyone down in 0.0 can agree that sov as it exists today is awful.  I wonder if ccp can actually make it better -- I'm not entirely sure how you'd go about fixing it.  It seems like it's both too easy and too hard to take systems, depending on the size of the entities involved, if the defenders have sov3, etc, etc.

One problem that so many games run into (and EVE is no exception) is that everything congeals into enormous power blocs because the little guys can't do anything meaningful on their own.  Then things stagnate until some external factor (a spy disbands BoB, etc) shakes things up enough to allow some progress.

I'm not sure how you can have the huge single universe that can accommodate big alliances and giant battles *and* allow for 25-100 person corps or alliances to take and hold space without getting steamrolled the instant that one of the big power blocs looks at them...

[Fordel]

You probably can't, outside of some artificial "Your Corp only has 20 members, you are immune!" defense.

[Jayce]

I tend to disagree.  While the sov system certainly isn't perfect, it mirrors the real world in that sov 3/4 supplies enough stability that people can have recovery periods and relatively safe rear areas, while not being impossible to break, either.

And NPC space and low-value space exists for small entities.  If anything I'd like to see the map expand.  Vast spaces allow smaller groups to take areas that no one is interested in.  Imagine lots of small Providences - places where a fledgling 0.0 corp can find its space legs.