EVE Online, BoB Betrayed.

Surprised Oric hasn't posted about this, but I saw this in PCG and thought I'd post it here.

In EVE online, there have been scams, infiltrations, double-crosses and backstabs for years, but nothing like this: the dissolution of the most powerful single alliance in the history of EVE - Band of Brothers. What's most chilling for the former members of that alliance is that the person who takes much of the credit is a CEO of their arch-nemesis, the GoonSwarm corporation born of the Something Awful forums. In the early hours of February 5, GoodSwarm leader 'The Mittani' posted to the official EVE forums, announcing that BoB was no more. he had, thanks to the help of a high-ranking defector, disbanded the entire alliance, and loted its offers.

The traitor, 'Haargoth' of Black Nova corporation, had decided he no longer respected the BoB alliance his corporation belonged to, and was in fact ready to betray them to GoonSwarm. The two huge alliances, which had been warrning on and off for years, both had spies in each other's ranks. Never, though, had one been so well placed as Haargoth. He was able to steal a huge amound of BoB assets, but he was also able - thanks to his directorship powers within Black Nova Crorp - to elect not to pay the Alliance Fee. It's a comparatively small amount that EVE's rules demand each corporation in an alliance pay every month. But if any one of them refuses, the entire alliance is broken. With, it turns out, dramatic consequences.

Capturing space in EVE is all in a name. In order to build player-owned space stations and shipyards, an alliance must officially hold sovereignity over the solar system. To reinforce and defend them, it must hold them long enough to reach the higher sovereignty levels, permitting powerful defensive structures.
BoB had been operating out of the region of Delve for several years, and had previously fought-off an incursion by Goon and Russian forcer. Delve was a fortressed region, thoroughly entrenched.

But when the alliance the holds soverignty ceases to exist, all their defensive options are lost. Their stations and shipyards are instantly vulnerable. Just by deleteing the name of his alliance, Haargoth had left the gates of the fortress wide open. Band of Brothers rapidly reformed as 'KenZoku', but their enemies were not going tro allow them the weeks required to re-establish high level sovereignty and rebuild. Fleets from GoonSwarm, Pandemic Legion and the Northern Coalition - all long-term enemies of BoB - descended on Delve. Thousands of players, all attacking together. Their capital ships began tearing down player-owned structures, blowing up near-priceless capital ship construction installations that had been left defenceless.

The cost of all this for the alliance formerly known as Band of Brothers is incalculable. Several thousand players hav eeach sunk hundreds of man-hours into the BoB project over a number of years. Haargoth's act of betrayal has potentially cost millions of man hours of work, and the real-world equivalent of tens, maybe hundreds of thoughsands of pounds of damage to virtual assets. it is griefing on a scale that the Goons, fuelled by their philiosophy of chaos and disruption, had previously only dreamed of.

All of this is perfectly within the rules, say developers CCP. What 'The Mittani' and#Haargoth' arranged was not an exploit, it's the way these game mechanics are intended to function. It was just a catastrophic act of sabotage - just like you'd expect froim the ruthless dark future of New Eden.

Ripped directly from PCGamer magazine.

www.pcgamer.co.uk


- Vicious Out.

Yeah it's pretty insane. They have businesses worth thousands on there O.o.

Wow, that sounds like quite a big deal! I would be so utterly pissed if I was part of BoB, all that time spent - for nothing.

Oh, and I helped you out with your paragraphs :).

this was months ago but still pretty big.

Epicness... that's the sort of drama that should exist in MMOs, and I thank the gamer-gods that EVE Online gives these nutjobs a place to create it. And considering the whole idea behind the game, and it's genre, it's totally in charactor too.

Thanks Chalex, I couldn't be bothered to put them all in after XD

I wonder what the economy is gonna be like now, BoB owned a hell of a lot of stuff, which is now up for grabs. I love the way that the devs aren't going to intervene, even when loads of BoB's people are begging to get their stuff back, because it's all in the rules, and they should be prepared. We need more games like this.

(damages were 3trillion ISK, which is worth ALOT of real $'s)

i must say pretty old news, but its still hot :P, i used to be in BOB, until i stopped playing eve, ive started playing again for the third or fourth time, somehow it always draws me back :D

I would pay if it weren't for subscription.

http://images.tentonhammer.com/eve/delve.gif

It's the log for the siege.

I may *may* buy timecards if the trial draws me in..

You can trade ISK for timecards with other players legally cant you?
That way if u hammer the game you can make it pay for itself.

Yeah, I think you can. Just read up on get ISK quick etc. strategys and you'll be fine xD

Have you ever played before / u still downlaoding?

Meh i tried the game but grinding in space aint that fun, plus i got a really nice ship and some bastard blew it up. Didnt have insurance :D

Thats a lesson i wont forget.

Lol platinum insurance is an essential if your gunna risk lo sec.

1 thing i loved tho gettin my battleship, arming to the teeth with light missiles, and blowing the shit out of a random guy in his siney new frigate that was bragging on local chat in Jita. Lost the ship but its insured and he got destroyed before CONCORD got me xD.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Colonel Mitch

Lol platinum insurance is an essential if your gunna risk lo sec.

1 thing i loved tho gettin my battleship, arming to the teeth with light missiles, and blowing the shit out of a random guy in his siney new frigate that was bragging on local chat in Jita. Lost the ship but its insured and he got destroyed before CONCORD got me xD.

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i must say thats pretty damn stoopid on a battleship :D:D:D

lol thats pretty gay that 1 person can decide just not to pay that fee and the whole alliance disappears along with all there defence structures :P People must be sooo pissed with that guy he prob turn up dead by the amount of people that will have lost out :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr.Big

i must say thats pretty damn stoopid on a battleship :D:D:D

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It was fine I was about to quite anyway, and i only had hideously cheap modules eqquipped.

Still downloading.

Heh, I heard a story about this guy I know's brother, spent about 2 months grinding for this new ship, 2 SOLID months, and he eventually got it, he bought it, and as soon as he undocked some guy Nuked him and he lost it all XD

I think he cried x3

Sup, registered to post this.

I've been playing with goonswarm for about 3 years now. I enjoyed the article immensely, however they got a few details wrong.

Mittani is not actually the CEO or 'Leader' of Goonswarm, That position recently belonged to Darius Johnson but he has just now passed the leadership to ex-diplomat Zapawork. Mittani always works behind the CEO, acting as one of his primary 'right-hand men' He assumes the role of 'spymaster' and manages a vast network of spy agents. We like to think of him as our very own Dr. Strangelove. That is a man with an answer and solution to even the most hilarious of doomsday scenarios we constantly seem to find ourselves in.

The actual disbanding of the bob alliance by the hands of Haargoth was in reality done slightly differently than how it happened in the article, The alliance fees simply turned out to be one of the many rumors flying about. In actuality, Haargoth had a character in Tinfoil which is the executor corp for BoB. This is essentially the highest level of control for the whole alliance, as characters with the clearance required in this particular corp have the ability to eject member corps from the alliance. Which is what really happened, Haargoth simply went down the list of corps, clicking each one and selecting 'kick'. When there were no corps remaining in the alliance the whole thing goes poof, alliance gone, name, sov, everything.

It's still not over though. Delve (BoB's former fortress home) is considered firmly in the hands of goons, however there is still fierce fighting in surrounding regions as the predominantly russian Against all Authorities bloc who aligned themselves with BoB just prior to their disbanding now counter-attacks. They are afraid that with bob out of the picture will pick them apart at our leisure, They're probably right too.

Oh yeah and as for bob, well they reformed as kenzoku then a while later they got their name changed back to BoB by the developers. Everyone cried bullshit, because apparently you're not allowed to get special favors like that so the developers set their name back to kenzoku. They aren't really considered a potential threat in the big scheme of things nowdays.

Welcome to ATK Stahlregen.

Thanks for taking the time to post this, the way you explained it was actually a lot more understandable to me (who doesn't play EVE) than the original article, and it makes a lot more sense now. I think the publishers of the article are trying to make it more entertaining by messing with the truth, which i'm not blaming them for, however sometimes things can be misleading or exaggerated.

In any way, the only MMOs i've played are WoW and WAR, and some other Korean MMOs, and i'm always astounded when I hear stories like this, where whole guilds are fighting and you can literally have the whole guild (whatever a guild is called in EVE) wiped out because you let an undercover agent in from an opposing guild. When I first saw an article in PCG about a similar story, I just thought it was fiction made up based on the game :).

Anyway, hope you'll stick around at ATK.

Wow, thanks Stahl for clearing that up, and welcome to ATK ^^

Hope you stick around for a while =D

(Update, trial is almost finished installing LOL)

If you're just starting eve, even if you are only on a trial, i can only suggest immediately applying to a corp by the name of eve university. They exist solely to educate new players in how the game is played, tactics, money-making, pitfalls and all that jazz and they appear to be one of the only completely neutral groups around. That is, you're not going to find yourself getting wiped out by one of the 'big boys' in some massive interstellar war (although, you should probably not be too concerned about this as it happenes to pretty much everyone). Coupled with their infrastructure and top-notch mentors, and support they provide to their new recruits makes eve university a player's best bet for getting a headstart over everyone else and being able to plunge into the real meat of the game.

And then when you think you've had enough hand-holding, you can apply to one of the many corporations or alliances out there- Due to E-uni's reputation, having them listed in your corp history will most likely help you in being accepted into other groups.

http://www.eve-ivy.com/

edit: Oh yeah, and these are some pretty handy video tutorials for very mundane yet massively important things.


Setting up your overview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-wL8bGCWCQ

How to hide from guys trying to kill you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtAgtrp4Uj0

Tackling, The ultimate skill required for pvp:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PayTWKxtn6I

How to use on-board scanner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99kRIbp4FBQ

How not to look like a retard in front of the rest of your fleet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt-nXHCuw2A

(Not totally applicable, different corps/alliances have different fleet procedures.)

How not to look like a retard in front of the rest of your fleet (continued):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7m3A...eature=related

Thanks alot Stahl ^^ If I feel I can afford to pay the subscription I may consider it, and I'll have a look at EVE University, thanks for the head up =)