Major advances have been made recently in various once-stagnant scientific fields, throughout all of civilized New Eden. While the full impact of these advances has yet to be measured, their effects, for good and ill, are already being felt at various levels of society.
Sadly, this is yet another example of the many ways in which The Mittani & Goonswarm are leading the way to transform EVE from a diverse, multifaceted combat & industry Sci-Fi virtual universe into the premier MMO for little boys who like pulling the wings off flies, for whom low-risk ganking and griefing of the defenseless and inexperienced stand as the ideal, most valorized form of PvP, and combat among relative equals, where skill is required and outcome uncertain, almost ceases to be mentioned as PvP at all, discarded and devalued as a no-fun, unnecessary risk to be avoided.
UPDATE (2012.04.27 00:48 UTC): Goons leave station in force, but to what effect still uncertain. I blinked. I think I missed the whole thing.
UPDATE (2012.04.27 01:48 UTC): Bigger wave this time. Seems to have overwhelmed defenders for moment.
UPDATE (2012.04.27 03:30 UTC): Number of waves by now, but have seen no freighters attacked. Goons taking nearly 2 to 1 losses thus far.
UPDATE (2012.04.27 04:08 UTC): Unless the Goons are going to take on Jita commerce directly -- destroying Freighters and Orcas -- this is much ado about nothing. It will be over when they leave without much economic impact. Prices that have risen on expectation of broad market disruption will shortly return toward normal. Inferno changes and, to lesser extent, the coming Hulkageddon are more economically consequential than this, which to this moment appears but a side show tribute to The Mittani's wounded ego.
UPDATE (2012.04.27 15:15 UTC): Start of day for me from safe and snug inside Jita iV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant. Seems fairly tame right now. About a dozen Goons in immediate vicinity. Freighters still moving through untouched.
UPDATE (2012.04.27 16:40 UTC): Pretty foolish, Goon-pandering article has appeared in Eurogamer.net, relaying some of Eve Online senior producer Jon Lander's own pandering to the same. Eurogamer Weley Win-Poole writes, "Some players are worried the game will be ruined by The Mittani's Goonswarm alliance, but CCP promised not to interfere" and that Jon Lander enthused, "I tell you what, it's going to be f***ing brilliant. Absolutely
brilliant." Good pat on the Goonies's pointy little heads, there, Jon. Of course, CCP is not going to "interfere." There is ZERO chance the attack on Jita will "destroy the EVE economy" or any other aspect of the game, which is designed and maintained to handle exactly this kind of player driven action -- a fact which Eurogamer eventually gets around to noting by the end of the article.
UPDATE (2012.04.27 17:30 UTC): There's now a list of some dozen freighters that have been downed, it appears in action either side of the gates to Jita, rather that at the Caldari Navy Assembly Plant itself. So clearly time for haulers to stay clear of Jita and vicinity until Goons pack up and go elsewhere. As there are likely few buyers traveling to Jita at the moment, there's not much sense in hauling there.
UPDATE (2012.04.27 19:45 UTC): Not much new at this hour. Pretty much settling down to routine.
UPDATE (2012.04.27 22:30 UTC): Yawn. The routine drags on. This report of a big Goon score on a freighter moving far too many BPOs, relayed everywhere by The Mittani, was grossly exaggerated by killboard software mistaking BPCs for BPOs. Best news is that there are signs of AAA action in Perimeter -- report is they have wardecced the Goons -- so there may be some break to the monotony later this Friday evening, US time.
UPDATE (2012.04.28 15:30 UTC): The number of freighters still heading into Jita is or ought to be a humbling reminder of how vast is New Eden, how diverse and distributed her populations, that the "big event" that so obsesses those of us who are consumers of EVE news and EVE politics has even now not reached everywhere and everyone. At this time, there are 2144 pilots in Jita, though only about 600 in space. Even if we grant another 2000 pilots currently online in the peripheral systems and elsewhere preparing, that still leaves something approaching 90% of EVE's current online capsuleer population of 39,472 profoundly indifferent to "The Burning
Whether these acts violate any nation's or state's laws defining the crime of "Cyber-Bullying," whether these acts violate EVE Online's End-User License Agreement (EULA) or its Terms of Service (TOS) is beside the point.
Legal or contractual status does not change the nature of these acts. And if we cannot plainly, frankly recognize and discuss these acts for what they are, as well as their present and likely future consequences for EVE, that itself is more than sufficient indication of the level of animosity to which player-to-player relations have fallen in EVE Online, in no small part due to The Mittani's and his GoonWaffe followers' long-sustained fomentation and exploitation of contempt for non-PvP high sec players, especially "carebear" miners, not just as players but as persons. Browse almost any EVE Online Forum thread to discover them in action.
In the long term, I would like to see hisec itself become a realm of misery and fear. In the past two weeks as I have been murdering miners, I have found the average hisec dweller to be truly execrable. -- "Alexander Omega," GoonWaffe
If we break 10k votes this year, we're going to annihilate Jita - and everyone is invited.
'annihilate jita' means 'camp 4-4 in tornadoes and destroy every single freighter coming in or out of it' fyi
-- @TheMittani
In no small measure, Alexander Gianturco has ridden precisely this kind
of "bad boy" persona and a bully ethos of public ridicule of "The Other" in EVE as he and his define it to the Chair
of the EVE's player representation body, The Council of Stellar Management (CSM).
This persona and ethos have been, to significant extent, that for which he has both
sought and received admiration, applause, and most recently over 10,000
account votes in the CSM7 election. In what he insistently called by the Stalinist term, his campaign "agitprop," he argued repeatedly that the job of CSM chair required someone of his order of thuggishness.
The long running capsuleer organisation Red vs. Blue has over the past week seen unprecedented growth, increasing in membership by over a third. This news has been met with enthusiasm by the industrialists of their home region of Lonetrek, where demand for ships, modules and ammunition is at an all-time
If one is concerned by the the poor representation of High and Low Sec interests on the CSM, the first necessary order of business ought to be to dispose, once and for all, of the myth that Empire Space is poorly represented "because Empire votes are divided among too many High and Low Sec candidates."
A simple, open-eyed look at the voter turnout and results from the last CSM election suggests, to the contrary, that the truth is more that there are barely any Empire Votes to divide, unless you are moonstruck enough to believe there's any circumstance in which the diverse interests of Empire citizens -- High and Low; Miner, Mission Runner, Faction Warrior; Ganker and Gankee -- and transitive Wormholers could be somehow magically united behind one candidacy.
For CSM6, 49,096 votes were cast by 14.25% of the approximately 344,533 eligible votes. The results were as follows:
Delegates
Votes
Character
5,365
The Mittani
3,813
Seleene
3,320
UAxDEATH
3,306
Trebor Daehdoow
2,925
Killer2
2,539
White Tree
2,240
Vile Rat
2,086
Meissa Anunthiel
1,986
Draco Llasa
Alternates
Votes
Character
1,747
Elise Randolph
1,341
Prometheus Exenthal
1,090
Krutoj
956
Two Step
921
Darius III
Aside from what must be called a low overall participation rate given how long-advertised is the annual polling, the most telling fact, here, is that the winning delegates and alternates received a whopping 68.5% of the votes actually cast.
Basically, if your character(s) voted at all, the odds are 2 to 1 you were more or less happy with the outcome. The top four winning candidates, by themselves, received a combined vote total greater than all the disappointed votes combined.
As the 15461 disappointed votes doubtless include a good number of votes for lesser 0.0 vanity candidates, just as the happily rewarded 33625 votes doubtless include a good number of Empire votes for winning Nullsec candidates, it is simply, by the numbers, unreasonable to expect Empire candidacies to pull enough votes to win out of what is objectively a rather small pool of participating dissatisfied Empire voters.
The rude rough truth, statistically speaking, may well be this: Nullsec votes; Few else bother.
Under these bleak circumstances, the only objective path to Empire victory for any one Empire candidate is to expand the pool of Empire votes for all Empire candidates. Not by a little, not by just enough, but by whole hell of a lot.
Further fighting in Delve this month saw the Goonswarm Federation alliance capture several more stations, taking five from Brick Squad. Morsus Mihi and Brick Squad seem to be drawing their attempt to take hold of parts of Delve to a close, with their activity in the region
YC 113.10.01 – YC 113.10.31 The situation this month was similar to September; whilst most sovereignty warfare occurred in the Catch region, Delve saw the highest level of ship losses. In Catch, further stations were lost by Against All Authorities (AAA) and their allies to the attackers, though
YC 113.09.01 - YC 113.09.30 September saw continued pressure from White Noise, Red Alliance and their allies being put on Against All Authorities (AAA). AAA lost several stations, with a total of 16 stations falling to the attackers this month. Despite the amount of territory exchanging hands, the number
What does it mean when an otherwise serious, highly respected EVE blogger, whose posts are usually full of the most insightful analysis and balanced, pragmatic suggestions for both playing and improving EVE, suddenly drops two columns wailing wildly about "problems" that are arguably not real problems -- just the bedrock nature of EVE as we've long known it? And when it comes to proposing solutions to these exaggerated problems ... nothing. Mr. Always Insightful falls strangely silent: "How to fix it? I haven't a clue."
We didn't have to wait long for the other foot to fall. Shortly comes another post in which he coyly announces himself (with shovelfuls of self-praise) as a maybe-yes, maybe-no -- oh dear, which way can true-blue-little-old-outsider me exercise the greater influence for the greater good? -- in short, he's come out as a non-candidate candidate for CSM 7.
This is vote pandering EVE style, in the worst way. And it's an embarrassment to read. I genuinely feel for the guy. Dreaming of greater glory, he's gone completely off the rails. And I'd let it go, except that what he's playing with, the kind of pandering he's indulging, is actually a threat to EVE as we know it. We don't need CSM candidates or non-candidate candidates engaging in demagoguery over this particular set of issues.
The respected blogger turned pandering EVE politico is Jester (Ripard Teg). The three pieces directly at issue are Mid-game problem (2012.01.25), Strangled in the crib (2012.01.27), and Influence (2012.01.27). And the issues on which he chooses to pander are the length of time it takes to accumulate skill points and the cost of skill books. Always sure-fire arrows ready in the demagogue's quiver: "gain without pain" and "lower taxes." His target voter population: "mid-game" insufficiently acculturated whiners looking for more console-like instant gratification and short-cuts to what they mistakenly suppose is EVE's "end-game."
[UPDATE: Aw... Jester pulled a "Sarah Palin" and decided not to run. Such a tease. Hope it wasn't something I said. (meow) Or was his a "Donald Trump" or a "Herman Cain"? So many inspiring non-candidate candidates from RL this US election cycle. Guess we can no longer accuse Jester of pandering for votes. We'll just have to leave it as pandering for attention. The objections stand.]
August saw a large number of the alliances that make up the Drone Region Forces (DRF) coalition launch an assault on the Against All Authorities (AAA) alliance homeland of Catch. The key systems of HED-GP and GE-8JV have fallen to the DRF, with fighting causing a colossal
This month saw elements of the DRF, primarily NC., Pandemic Legion and Raiden launch an attack on the Goonswarm Federation home region, Deklein. The primary goal is believed to have been to acquire a grasp on as many technetium rich moons as possible due to their immense
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