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Begun, the blob wars have.
Beatnik59
Member UncommonPosts: 2,413
BOB and GoonSwarm have set alight the forums as I have never seen before.
BOB says they will rid the galaxy of the GoonSwarm...permanently, and that its personal.
GoonSwarm says that their hive of 3000 is motivated, angered, and unbreakable.
D2 and its Northern allies stand ready to fight a war against two superpowers.
What are the short term and long term reprocussions here?
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Comments
To make a long story short, a BOB member put a link to a certain forum signature on either the SA or the GoonFleet forums that many took offence to concerning a deceased player. BoB thinks that it was a sick gesture, so they got pissed and declared war. They are mad, and they are saying that they want to erradicate GoonFleet for the sake of the community.
GoonFleet argues that the forum sig was about four months old, and an isolated case that should have never been brought to the official forums in this manner. They argue that it is disgusting BoB would make such a public spectacle out of this just as a pretext for war. The Goons are saying that this is stirring up the "honet's nest" like nothing else before or since.
That's the basics of it, but the locked threads can go into more detail. I can't say that either side is blameless, but all I know is that its gone waaaayyyy beyond civil. Its personal.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
As far as I'm aware the signature (wich was on private forums'public section afaik), is not the cause in itself. It maddened alot of people that knew the deceased player in question (which was a well-liked player by many of us). But the further escalation from that point on can no longer be attributed to that incident itself, but mainly to the total of reactions by alot of goonswarm members on the forums as well as on their private forums and in ingame chat channels. Add those to the incident itself and similar exhibits of behaviour we choose to find unacceptable and you get an escalation of a magnitude indeed not seen before.
What it comes down to is this: Alot of goonswarm members (which does to equal all of them, and certainly not all SA forum users), have exhibited behaviour unacceptable to us. We value the community we've helped build in the last three years (BoB is an alliance mainly made up of older players from all corners of the Eve community as well as the real world), and we now recognise that a good number of the people in goonswarm are in our eyes not fit to be part of that community.
Now, normally things would end there, seeing how we are just players and we are not interested in taking things across the boundaries of what is legal or allowed by CCP's regulations. However, Eve allows it's players to affect eachother directly by disrupting eachother's play and removing competiting groups of players from powerfull positions by attack and political action.
So that's what we will do. We will from now on supress any and all attempts by goonswarm to build an ingame foundation for their alliance. If we can we will cause them so much harm that the alliance breaks up. If this means part of them leave the game then so be it. We have little compassion for those that stand by and support players that have shown the contempt for decency that the players that caused this have.
It also means that were we mostly have some respect for our opponents and will be glad to chat and joke with them on occasion outside of the arena of Eve political powerplay, we will not now. This became a personal issue for alot of us, notably some of our leaders, and therefore all gloves are off.
This all has nothing to do with us losing sight of the fact this is 'just a game' btw. We just see this game as one worth defending against the unwashed hordes so to say
Thats going to be a lot of people, including myself!
Just make sure that with this little war you don't take out the rest of us at the same time.
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i wish this was broadcasted en EVETV also. hey Rod, dont forget to tell someone there at BoB to start fraps on the important battles.
I just think this is a publicity stunt by BOB, who is using this as a pretext to hit the Goons while they are engaged with D2.
The reason I say this is because if they truly felt that strongly about the GoonSwarm being a detriment to the community like you say Rod, then they had the pretext all along. There is nothing the GoonSwarm is guilty of this week that they haven't been guilty of before.
Yet BOB has done nothing until now. So to me, if BOB wants to make themselves the protectors of the sanctity of Tranquility, then they have done a poor job of it to this point.
But why now, and not before? More importantly, what has changed within the GoonSwarm between when they started, and recently?
GoonSwarm stumbled into an alliance fight with the linchpin in the North, and the weakest of the "big three." It was all well and good when the GoonSwarm was in Empire and 0.0 without a permanent presence there, but now that they have established sovereignety, and are grinding D2 down in a war of attrition, the Goons are starting to look serious. Having the "unwashed masses" playing the game at that level, and succeeding at that level, is something that the elitist BOB cannot allow. Especially since they are starting to assert themselves on the forum more strongly, and stealing BOB's spotlight at every turn.
That to me sounds more what this is about than any threat to community standards. Or at least, I hope so. Its a shame too, because I was really looking forward in seeing what these two alliances could do against eachother without all the chest-beating and scrambling for the moral high ground, throwing a great power struggle and alliance fight into the gutter.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Last I heard is that BoB aren't exactly the purveyors of decency, fair play, and civil fun, either. I don't see how they have the luxury of any sort of moral grudge against anyone. In fact, the only time I've ever heard BoB mentioned, the statements are predicated on their manipulative use of game functions (ie: private message invitation spamming) to prevent others from fighting back, as well as their elitist contempt for anyone who isn't part of their little club.
Eradicate GoonSwarm if you must, but please don't act like your presence in the game is improving it in any way, BoB.
We don't see ourselves as some kind of protector of tranquility at all.
There's just the basic fact that destroying someone you have no respect for is more fun then destroying someone you do have respect for.
As for what changed, the goons cast off their self-control. Since this thing unfolded, we've seen more drivel, smack, insult and generally contemtable behaviour in the last week then we've seen come from all our previous enemies combined in the last year. It's the whole attitude of "we know better, you take this too seriously and are therefore a pimplyfaced internetwarrior with no life", posted while they're internally discussion how to force the D2 alliance to quit the game...
I mean, we respect all our enemies to some degree, because smack only hurts so much on its own, and there's mostly enough of the good going around to compensate for most of the bad. But not this time.
Ever since the gons got set loose (as in, being allowed to talk in local, discuss freely on the forums etc, literally nothing but crap has been uttered by them.
On a personal note, I am relieved that we moved the hell out of their way rev=cently, but yeah most of the alliance still sits on the southern tip of BoB territory, so maybe - just maybe, we could assault nothwards as they compete for the northern grounds. Blob war can help the rest of us set up empire to deep 0.0 highways. This could be interesting.
"Just because there are other colours to use in chat does not mean you have to use them..." - Please follow
It is actually. Eve would not have been Eve without some of the people in BoB. And no, I'm not meaning to say we've got devs in our alliances no. Simple fact is that alot of the major key people in Eve's community end up in BoB at some point. More then elsewhere.
But aside from that, I don't really see what you'd be basing your comments on. BoB has not been connected to convo spammage at all (except by one altpost regarding the tournament finals, that got countered pretty quickly as well). People accuse of of using whatever exploit they can think of all the time. That's what happens when you make people lose: they get jealous and deluded. It happens to anyone that at some point is in a powerfull postition within the game and at conflict with someone that can't see reason.
In fact, I can proudly say that Evolution at least does not tolerate any form of exploiting or what we consider lame gameplay at all. Yes we will use methods others might not like (spying, theft, propaganda), but we can't realy be expected to uphold everyone else's morals aswell as our own now can we ? *We* choose our own set of rules to play by.
As to what gives us the right to judge these people unfit when all they do is choose a different set of rules to determine what is decent or allowable in human interaction ?
The simple fact that we can.
As for the sides being evenly matched. Don't make me laugh.
Hehe, try it and see my friend
Our home regions of Delve, Period Basis and Querious suffer no loss of security even when we aren't there.
You've got CCP to thank for that btw. Instajumps, jumpclones, freighters and multiple accounts combined can make alot of things happen when the organisation is good enough.
As for the personal stuff. Read what has been said again. This isn't an alliance of 3000 people being held responsibel for the actions of one or two. It's a group of a few dozen to a few hundred misfits being attacked because of their own actions, making everyone that continues to be in the same corporations as they are a target as well. We don't judge all of them, but if we want to strike at part of the corp effectively, we have to hit all of it.
Guilt by association has always been one of the standards in Eve. Your association with people determines your reputation and status more then do your own actions in this game. If anyone is strict in applying this principle it's BoB.
And this was typed and posted before rob's second reply which fixed a few thought errors in my post, it makes sense if the point of goonsquad, since their early beginnings to be a small hit corp to be around purely to destroy everyone else's gameplay.
Gl to yes. BUt please let us get a not blue pass through going to Jita atleast ^_^ lagg city but man you can make some cap there
"Just because there are other colours to use in chat does not mean you have to use them..." - Please follow
Can't say I'm too sympathetic to the Goonswarm here, some of their members have proven to be rather immature in the EVE forums. But it'll be interesting how this all plays out.
But I post this for the benefit of new players and those curious to try EVE.
<thread hijack>
Guys, this is what makes the game. This is real roleplay. The great thing about EVE is when this conflict is over. Regions will probably have changed hands, ships will be lost, corporations and alliances will have risen and fell, and it will be yet another facet of the grand geopolitical tapestry that makes the history of EVE.
God I love this game.
</thread hijack>
Godspeed BOB, give them your best.
EDIT: fixed some grammar to make meaning more clear
Considering the sterling reputation of D2 this wouldn't exactly be a loss for the game. They are nothing but a bunch of smack talking stab whores.
If you really want to do the community a service Bob kill some BRS while you are in the Syndicate. You think the Goons smack and are disrepectful you should have to listen to these guys on a daily basis. The Goons are saints compared to them.
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Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that BoB has no right to declare war, or to be proud about what they have accomplished, or be proud of all the old time members they have. I think anyone who is even the slightest bit interested in the politics knew that eventually there would be a war against Goon and BoB.
If it were waged under the guise of economic reasons, or strategic reasons, or roleplay reasons, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it. Heck man, even if they said they want to use it as a training campaign, it would have been a whole lot easier to swallow than this.
In fact, I think the real reason that BoB wants this war has very little to do with what BoB is telling us. They don't want the Goons on their doorstep for strategic reasons, and that reason would have been enough to satisfy anyone questioning the motives here, because at least that motive makes sense.
See the problem with a motive that has to do with these abstract and esoteric notions of "community values" and all, is that it doesn't provide any clear measures of success or failure. Driving the Goons out of 0.0 is not going to make them start going to fanfests, clean up their language, or start buying EON. Driving the alliance and corporation is not going to help the people who stay, because frankly, BoB has demonized them as a whole so much, no other corp is going to take them.
Even driving those 3000 players to the cancel button isn't going to make SA leave EVE alone. If anything, it will cause them to do an internet smear campaign that will tarnish CCP's image, EVE's image, and the image of those who play. BoB cannot win this war easily given the high standard of victory they have set upon themselves in this conflict. This is not a war over things that one can easily calculate to see if you are winning, or not, since account cancellations is something that is rarely kept on killboards.
Moreover, the rhetoric is so heated on both sides, I'm not sure BoB can back out easily, whether it is two weeks, or two years. BoB is hoping for a quick, "shock and awe" show of force, and are hoping that if they clamp down on the Goons early and totally, the Goons will disband because they cannot do anything without getting blown up by BoB. I think BoB expects that if they can kick the Goons out of their sovereignety, that alone will cause the Goons to break.
The key here is if the Goons can keep it together if they get kicked from their sovereign space. If they can regroup in empire or as a roving swarm on the hoof in 0.0, maintain an active roster of 1000 pilots, and keep asserting themselves with their parodies of BoB's gravitas in all of this, the Goons will draw this out to the point that BoB will start to question whether or not the war is worth it, and may try and save face by backing out of the war.
Remember what the victory conditions are though, which is the total removal of the Goons from Tranquility, and EVE, for the sake of the total EVE community both inside and outside of BoB. Anything short of that is a loss for BoB.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
The only way to effectively displace an alliance from conquerable space is to move someone stronger to live into the same space. You cant displace an alliance from NPC-controlled 0.0. The only way to eliminate PoSes is through massive outblobbing to keep dreads safe while theyre in siege, to the point where combat isnt even possible.
This isnt going to be a GNW, or a SA/CA war that drags on for months or years. This is going to be BoB demonstrating why they are as good as they are. I dont think that most of goonfleet has any understanding of how wars on that level are fought, and its going to go badly for them.
I would agree with you Rollin, but this is no ordinary war.
Conquerable space, POS, dreadnoughts, and the way an alliance would normally fight a campaign will not work here. BoB has promised the utter annihilation of the Goons, to the point where they quit.
In other words, if they don't disband and leave EVE, then BoB loses, because that is what they promised the forum watchers. So what will happen if the Goons don't quit? BoB looks like they can't back their promises, and the Goons will still be there, ridiculing them for how seriously they play, in their own words, "an internet space game."
All the Goons have to do to win this war is to stay in EVE, and make BoB waste time against them. After all, this war according to BoB was never about taking the Goons space. It was about annihilating what they perceive to be a detriment to the community, which means the killsheets that really matter here are not ships and pods blown up, but accounts cancelled.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Second, alliance is only as strong as its will to fight. Any major war tests alliances will more then anything else, ships can be rebuild, POS can be redeployed and you can pull out of 0.0 to come back later. Best example of that is PA. They have survived multiple seeming destructive wars just because of their determination and will.
Third, I do agree with you on one thing, new world war is comming soon. One that will be a lot bigger in size then the Great Norther War, since population of EVE has doubled since that time. Everything is in place it is only a matter of time before true major ego's will clash. We have to attibute much to the reasons of why it is going to happen to Devs because that is where they are leading this whole thing to. Giving us more and more tools to wage wars on massive scales.
There are more players and less reason for them to fight.