Goonswarm | The Wandering Druid of Tranquility

Around and around she goes, where sov will land, well, the TCU doesn’t know…

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I caved into pressure, here is the Friday post.

I twittered last night that I was not making a Friday post as I was very frustrated with the game breaking bugs dealing with sov.  I said I did not want to make the post because I really did not want to rant.  I also received many emails, both in and out of game, for a summary of the situation.  So, I broke down and wrote the post.  I am still frustrated and I will try not to rant, just convey the situation and then get on with the normal Friday post stuff.

There are a few blogs that have discussed these issues with the two systems in question.  Those systems being  Z-REF3 and 3D-CQU, where bugs with the sov mechanic have broken game play:

The following thread on the EVE forums sums up the issue:

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1270539

In short, there are two systems, Z-REF3 and 3D-CQU, where sov can not be obtained.  The TCU goes online, you are awarded sov and then 20 to 48 minutes later the TCU goes offline and you loose sov.  Bringing a TCU online again and 8 hours later, the same issue.  U’K and AM have been dealing with this bug for literally days now with TCU’s going online every 8 hours and dropping sov less than an hour after that point.

Petitions have been submitted and CCP’s response to date has been less than stellar. I am not going into the responses, I don’t want to rant.  CCP is really dropping the ball on this one.  You would think that Ushra’Khan may be just ranting here, playing the COAD games, but that’s not the case.  Our enemies are supporting us on EVE Forums posts concerning this issue.

So, for all those people who were on the fence when Goonswarm made their claims that Dominion and it’s new sov mechanic was still in the Alpha level of development and not worthy of even being called a “Beta Test”, you should take note of this issue.

For all of us who saw this same issue on the test server prior to Dominion going live, well,  it’s very familiar and at the same time disappointing.  You would think that code from the test server would have been resolved before being rolled into production.  I have to say at this point and I can’t believe I am about to write these words, I agree with the folks in Goonswarm concerning the new sov mechanic.  Nullsec warfare is broken to the point that it’s simply not playable.

Please understand me here, I don’t agree with the Goonswarm position that the new sov mechanics are bad.   I think the new sov mechanic is a great change for the game and I want to see the new sov mechanics be used in game.  My issue is not with the mechanics themselves, my issue is that the testing on the test server showed obvious game breaking bugs with the new sov mechanics that needed further testing and tweaking.  These same issues were obviously not resolved when Dominion was brought onto Tranquility, hence the current issues.

I hope this was not too much of a rant.  Ahem, now that is out of the way, on to more items of note:

See you out there!

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Weekly Highlights February 19th 2010

“Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up…” – Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride (1987)

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Every time I write these Friday posts, they always seem to be a bit awkward to me. Well, the posting is not awkward, I just don’t want to leave the intro to the post something that is bland, the same thing each week. Bland posts every week lead to boredom for the reader and the writer.

So, what’s the stuff from this week?:

  • There is a lot of news concerning the fall of the D-GTMI system pretty much all over the place. The EVE Forums, the EVE Blogging Community, Kugutsumen as well as many other places. There are even a few YouTube videos from the battle in D-GTMI. In a nutshell, Paxton Federation held the system for over three years and when it came time to defend it from -A-, they lost the fight. Many reasons were cited from server lag (which was very bad although the node the NOT crash) to poor FC work to inexperienced combatants on the field. As to what the future holds for D-GTMI and PXF, that remains to be seen. It should however, be interesting to watch unfold.
  • Against All Authorities offered an olive branch to CVA after CVA’s failure to invade Catch as well as their loss of the D-GTMI system. CVA continued to be the arrogant aggressor and as a result -A- and it’s allies continue their response with an invasion of 9UY4-H. As of the writing of this blog post, 9UY4-H is under siege. There are both EVE forum posts and a few blogs posts on this battle so far and as always, I am more than willing to share what I find, enjoy!
  • Nullsec space drama continues to unfold. On Wednesday, Goonswarm disbanded. Many say this was only the natural course as a problem with maintaining isk in the correct divisions of the executer corp’s wallet led to the loss of key systems in Delve. After listening to the recorded meeting that Goonswarm held and their internal declaration that they were moving back to Syndicate, I initially though this was part of their plan. In that meeting, you clearly hear that the main speaker called the current sov mechaincs (in beta). They seemed to make sense that they would pull out of 0.0 altogether, until you read the post from kartton, the alliance director responsible for the sov loss in the first place. His post titled ‘Dear Goonfleet’ pretty much sums up the Goonswarm mindset of “Frak it all” as he simply took what isk was left and ran. In EVE online, you “adapt or die“. Goonswarm had to adapt to the new sov mechanics as well as the changes to the Titan Doomsday weapon from being an area of effect, grid clearing weapon to a single target weapon. They simply could no longer win fights with large fleets holding people on a grid and using a Titan to ‘clear the board’. Adapt or die, they simply could not do this. Their attitude that the’ sov mechanics are in beta’ reflects this inability to change and thus the infighting must have grown within alliance leadership. Cal over at the Wild at Heart blog has a great post on what happened. As more information becomes available, you can catch the updates at yet another of my Google shared items,Goonsfall.
  • Casiella over at Ecliptic Rift has started a Tumblr blog. So, being the social creatrue that I am, I caved to peer pressure and created one as well, http://eve-druid.tumblr.com. I plan to use my Tumblr blog in the same fashion as Casiella, to post things that don’t make it into my blog here or things that I can’t easily share with Google Reader.
  • Akura kawanaka of Eve Monkey announced that Fan Fiction Blogfest #2 is underway. You can read all the posts in yes, yet another Google shared item (Google should send more advertising dollars my way for all the props they get from me!)
  • One of my favorite sites, EVE Travel, moved to a new home this week. Head over to http://evetravel.wordpress.com and see why it’s a great site. Mark726 fly around New Eden and bring you photos of all the landmarks in game. It will take him a while, but it’s worth following the journey. The “Wanderer” in me just keeps bringing me back to the site.
  • CCP announced that they have learned a lot from their testing for the lag in fleet battles. Be sure to read the ENTIRE dev blog as there are some very useful tips on how to deal with these lag situations. It’s a good read and should be something you stop right now and do. I especially liked this part of the dev blog in reference to the final battle in D-GTMI: “On Jan 28th, we had a 1600 person fleet fight on Tranquility which our team monitored closely, keeping the node alive using methods that make our system admins faint. This was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, fleet fight ever in EVE (at least where the node survived the ordeal). This event allowed us to identify what was causing some of these glitches and deploy fixes live.” So, they finally listened to us, went to a system where the fleet fight request system was used for node reinforcement and actually monitored a live fleet fight 0n the production server. LO AND BEHOLD, THEY WERE ABLE TO IDENTIFY SOMETHING TO HELP THEM RESOLVE THIS ISSUE! Ahem…Well, finally they are listening to the stakeholders and we are again able to work together. Better late than never, thank you CCP. I for one am more than willing to continue to help resolve these issues, let’s keep that collaboration going!
  • Manasi over at A Mule in EVE wrote a response to the CCP dev blog on lag and very accurately voiced a valid issue about some of the survival tips for fleet lag.  He feels that the concept of clicking a module to activate it once and wait 8 minutes for the time out is unreasonable.  I happen to agree with him.  Read the whole post and participate in the discussion.
  • As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download continues. I am continually amazed at the number of blogs that we have listed.

See you out there mates!

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Weekly Highlights February 5th 2010

Yup, it’s the Friday post

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Yup, weekly highlights again.

Here are some things to highlight from the past week:

  • It’s been an interesting week.  Many of you saw me snap and rant for a bit.  I’m not going to recount those forum postings and articles on my blog here, it’s time to move past that stuff.  I will say this though.  The EVE forums continue to see post after post of complaints, however, CCP is returning in kind with announcements of specialized test server sessions.  I’ll keep my comments in the future on a more positive note and less “ranty”.  If anything, CCP does inspire people with passion however there are times when that passion is not expressed in the best of ways.  For that, I am sorry.  This of course, leads us to the next bullet which addresses some of the ‘passion’ that myself and many others have expressed.
  • CCP released Dominion 1.1.1, patch notes are available.  This line in the patch notes gives me hope:  Many behind the scenes optimizations and fixes have been implemented. Granted, this was announced before the test server testing on Wednesday the 27th, but it is obvious that they learned something.  The fight in D-GTMI hit 1600+ in local with well over 1000 on grid and the node held strong.  There was lag, but it was epically better than things have been, module response times varied from 30 seconds to 15+ minutes all throughout the battle.  Some times it was worse, other times it was better.  It was a bit random on who was being affected.  The lag problem is not fixed per se, but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was a week ago.  One thing that you have to note, the node NEVER crashed and that is a huge accomplishment.  We need to monitor this to see if similar fleet engagements obtain the same results, but I am feeling better about the work CCP is doing to work on this issue.  Yes, I will say it took too long since the deployment of Dominion, but they made a huge step forward.  My hats off to them on this one!
  • Huge bullet point and this is why as it leads to this item. -A- and it’s allies continue their push into Provibloc territory.  First by reclaiming space they took from -A- during an attack near HED-GP and then they continued into Providence itself.  D-GTMI fell to -A- as a direct result of those efforts.  CVA and their pets put up a decent fight.  As I write this, -A- is deploying the tools for maintaining sov.  The system D-GTMI now belongs to -A-.
  • Speaking of sov changes in systems, Goonswarm lost it’s sov in many systems due to it’s alliance bills not being paid.  Several other alliance lost their sov in the same fashion.  Seems that automatic payments for alliance bills have some issues, however, other alliance had these issues sorted out before their bills became due.  Many people are happy to see the goons fall as only the EVE Forums can relate.  A recording of a goonswarm meeting after sov was lost was recorded and placed on the EVE forums as well.  You can listen to it yourself.
  • Helicity Boson was featured in one of the EVE Community Spotlight articles on MMORPG.COM for his work in organizing the Hulkageddon contests.
  • Casiella Truza hosted an interesting discussion on writing fan fiction for EVE online.  If you like to write fan fiction head over and take a gander and join in the discussion!
  • Speaking of Fan Fiction, Janette Davy has been working on an interesting story, head over and catch up on all the posts!
  • On a non-EVE related note, Apple announced the iPad.  I am intrigued, but a lack of a camera, usb port and sd card slot are some things that I would have liked to see.  The announced accessories like the case that triples as a stand for watching movies or an inclined stand for ease of use of the onscreen keyboard for longer typing sessions are a plus.  The keyboard dock is also a nice addition.   Having an unlimited 3G data plan that is month to month, no contract at $29.99 is a major plus.  I’ll wait for the reviews after the 3G units hit the market here in the US in April.
  • And of course, we continue to add blogs to The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download.  Even with the cleanup last week, we have made it up to 516 working blogs in the OPML!

See you out there!

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Weekly Highlights January 29th 2010

“Who the hell are they?….”

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Welcome to the sixth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here . Check out other EVE Blog Banter

This month’s topic comes to us from Quintrala of Speed Fairy . She suggests to ”write a short fiction story about the dissolution of the BoB alliance. It could be from BoB’s point of view, the Goons’, by neutrals in 0.0, civilians in Empire, NPCs or even rats. Write about before, during or after the coup; give us stories of market, war, people or love. In-character or roleplay. We want to know what happened, from those fictional characters that, in your mind, were part of it.

“So, who the heck is this guy?”,  Ga’len hears this question repeated several times over the comms.  Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the  poor soul that Ga’len and his corp mates had been shooting seemed to change his identification on his transponder. It’s happened before, when a pilot decides to leave a corporation.  His transponder suddenly changes in the middle of a fight, but never before has Ga’len seen that happen to several pilots who are in the same alliance.

“Are they still enemies?”, asks Daff over the comms.

“Well, they are still shooting, so, I would say yes.  Keep firing, kill them, we will sort it out later.  Weapons free mates!!”, Ga’len encourages his squad mates. Several minutes later, the area around the stargate is littered with the debris of several wrecks, the drifting remains of a few cruisers.

“I sure as hell hope these guys were not new friends”, UnBaLaNcE says over the comms, “Did anyone hear about a standings reset?  I didn’t.  Wait, my datapad interface is buzzing, news alerts from Scope are coming in.”

Ga’len engages his datapad interface from within his pod.  The Scope, the new agency for all of New Eden has new reports coming in every few seconds.  Something major must be going on.

Ga’len orders his squad, “All squad members, loot what wrecks you can and dock up.  We need to see what is going on.”

A few minutes later, Ga’len is in the shower, washing off the remaining bits of Jovian goo.  Being a capsuleer has it’s advantages, but having to rinse off ‘goo’ everyday does get a bit trying at times.  “Good thing I keep my hair short, it’s so much easier to clean this stuff out,” Ga’len mutters to himself.

The squad agreed to meet up at the bar in station.  As Ga’len strolled to the bar, public information kiosks all over the station were filled with frantic reports of battles in the Delve region.  Reports upon reports of ships being destroyed.  Freighters filled with Band of Brothers assets being destroyed.  Massive plundering and pillaging continues to ensue.

“Yarr mateys!!!  What do ye be see’in tis’ about them southern seas, eh?” Ga’len says.  His corp mates at the bar just look at him and grin.

Daff is intently looking at his datapad.  He sips his drink and begins to speak aloud.  “Well, seems that there was some internal ‘strife’ among the alliance leadership.  Band of Brothers has disbanded.  One of the directors in the executor corporation apparently stole all the assets that were in station and formally disbanded the alliance under the terms of the Yulai Convention.  All sovereignty controls on their space have fallen.  Alliance leadership is attemping to rally all pilots together.  They are trying to ‘reform’ the alliance, but it will take some time.”

Everyone just stops drinking and stares at Daff as he asks,” So, Band of Brothers is no more?  How?  How can such a large power block in New Eden simlpy no longer exist?”

UnBaLaNcE speaks with his infamous sage wisdom in his voice.  “Gentleman, such a large alliance may have been dealt this blow from a traitor to their cause, but they are far too powerful to simlpy be unmade in one night.  The pilots and the corporations still exist.”

“Methinks this smells of a Goonswarm influence here.  It would not surprise me at all if they had a hand in these events.  After all, they have had spies in BoB for years.” Ga’len remarks.

“You should camp the gates on the trade routes in and out of Delve.  They may try to move assets out of that region as they may be in danger,” says the bartender.

Ga’len looks at the robot with a quizzical look.  “So, tell me.  When the hell did you grow a pair, eh?  Pair of cognitive lobes that is.  When did you turn pirate?”

Before ‘Robbie’ can answer, there is the sound of weapons fire outside on the promenade.  Everyone grabs their weapons and runs to the bar door.  Ga’len peeks outside and sees three bald pilots arguing with CONCORD officers.

“Dammit, it’s our bar, let us in NOW!!!  We just lost our fucking ships to some pirates that you won’t do a fucking athing about and now you won’t let us drown our sorrows!?!  MOVE THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY!!!,” yells one of the bald pilots.

“I’m sorry sir, but as I have told you, this bar was an establishment of the Band of Brothers alliance and until proper ownership can be established, this bar will remain closed.  Perhaps if they had paid the alliance bill before it was due this would not have happened.  Again, I am sorry, but if you continue to fire your weapons into the air, we will be forced to take you into custody.”

Ga’len holsters his gun and walks out onto the promenade towards the crowd that is now forming around the entrance to the closed bar.  The sight of three former BoB pilots so frustrated was more than he could bear.  Every ‘egger’ needs to have a drink after loosing your pod.  It’s tradition and one that must be respscted.

Ga’len says to the three bald, former BoB pilots, “Gentleman, I see that you are in need of your post cloning drink.  Do come this way.”   He looks at the CONCORD officer with an unusually respective face, “Officer, please excuse my friends here.  It appears that they have already had more than their share.  They can wait out their inebriation at our bar.  We’ll take it from here.”

Ga’len pushes the ‘baldies’ through the door to the Hot Gates bar, home of the Neo Spartans.

“Gentleman, before you begin to protest, let me buy you a drink.”  Ga’len motions to the bar and before ‘Robbie’ can protest and remind Ga’len of corporaton rules about BoB pilots in the bar, Ga’len whispers, “Before you say anything, use that pair you just grew and realize that hitting freighters in Delve will go better with inside information.  Besides BoB no longer exists per se.  Give them whatever they want, put it on my tab.”

‘Robbie’ stares at Ga’len with his blue glowing eyes, tilts his head to the left as in thought and then pulls out three tankards for the ‘guests’.

“Gentleman”, Ga’len says to everyone at the bar, “It would seem that Band of Brothers has abandoned it’s ‘family’.  It’s tough suddenly learning that everything you have is lost.  Loosing your pods at the same time, whew, what a blow.  Let’s drink to those who have fallen from grace.  TO BoB, MAY YOU REST IN PEACE!!”

“HOW DARE YOU INSULT US!!!  DON’T EVEN TRY TO PICK A FIGHT WITH ME!!  MY ALLIANCE WILL COME AND KICK YOUR ASS!!!” yells one of the ‘baldies’.

Ga’len’s eyes narrow and he glares at him.  “Sir, with all due respect, you should be more civil when you are in the bar owned by the same corp that put you into that fresh clone.  Don’t test my patience nor impugn my honor.  I offered you a drink and safe harbor out the kindness of my heart, but I won’t suffer to pass such insults.  Your alliance is gone, your support is gone and soon everything you own will be plundered and pillaged by those who call themselves pirates.  Don’t make me put you into another clone.”

The ‘baldie’ storms out of the bar and heads off in the direction of the old BoB bar.  Weapons fire is heard being exchanged and shortly after, three CONCORD officers walk past the entrance of  the Hot Gates bar, with a hover stretcher carrying the ‘baldie’ behind them.

Ga’len looks at the other two ‘baldies’ sitting at the bar.  Their eyes are wide open with fear.  “Gentleman, as long as you behave yourselves, you have nothing to fear from us right now.  You are welcome to stay and drink with us.  So, tell me, was your brash friend the one who decided to attack us?”

“My name is Derom”, says one of the ‘baldies’, “and to answer your question, yes, it was him.  You must understand, you are our enemies, we don’t really trust you regardless if our alliance is still alive.”

Derom pulls out his weapon and before he can point it at Ga’len, ‘Robbie’ blasts him away.  The third ‘baldie’ pulls out his weapon and shoots himself in his own head.

“Well, that was pointless.  Apparently it’s true what they say, the only good BoBbit is a dead BoBbit.” Ga’len remarks.  Laughter is heard from all over the bar.

“So, Ga’len”, asks UnBaLaNcE, “Shall we make a run for it in Delve?  Personally, I don’t it think it would be wise.  Every pirate in New Eden will be heading that way.  We may be tough, but we are small compared to some of those who would want to take that space.”

Thoughtfully, Ga’len looks up at the ceiling.  “Yeah, I think it would be a bad idea.  They acted like cornered animals when offered safe haven.  I hate to think what would happen if they were actually threatened. to say nothing about all their enemies.  Let them fight it out, we will simply pick up what comes our way. ”

“Sir”, ‘Robbie’ says to Ga’len, “As the BoBbits are now dead and the cleaning units are dispatching the corpses, shall I pour you another drink?”

Ga’len looks at the bartender and proclaims, “Drink me’earties, YO HO!!”

More of The Bleeding Rose

Please do read these other fine posts on this month’s Blog Banter!!!

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