Friday 12 February 2010

Eve Online: Goonageddon: Conclusions

Is goonery dead in Eve?

No.

They took a big hit in assets. Not only the estimated 1.6 trillion isk Kartoon confiscated but a lot of players have stuff trapped in hostile systems or lost stuff to pirates and hostiles during the evac. On the other hand assets are not the most important element in Eve, players are.

They will lose some disappointed players and have expelled some of the corps that made up the former alliance. The Goons value their identity as Something Awful posters. Something Awful is a very strictly moderated forum. This fiasco has caused Eve goons to re-evaluate themselves, they are now less willing to tolerate people who would be mocked as bad posters on the SA forums simply because those guys are good at Eve. In addition some genuine SA people who were heavily into the POS-shooting side of the game will quietly stop playing.

On the flip side they will gain a lot of new and returning members who will come in the hope of seeing interesting drama.

I think that while they may not take much of a numbers hit they will become less effective per capita as POS-shooters get replaced by forum warriors. Less effective at conquering space at any rate, they should as an alliance become more effective at posting without grammatical errors and mocking other forum-goers.


Where are they going?

Cloud Ring according to leaks on the SA forum. I think they'll be able to take it and I think they'll be able to hold it. I think once they get it they will stick there for a while. In the long run I'm sure they'll be hoping to launch a campaign against their nemesis in Delve, if for no other reason than that it will be an interesting story.


Who's in charge?

I think they have a pretty competent bunch, certainly better leadership than the lackluster Karttoon and the burnt out Niart Epar.

Darius Johnson will reprise his role as "loud shouty man". He's an extrovert who is very entertaining and persuasive and the Goons will be pretty effective while he runs the show. He quite recently became a father though and gave up being CEO because of that so his real life will probably require him to pass on the reins fairly soon.

Here he is giving a presentation at Fanfest 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9BjwNmdn6U

Here he is recently snorting cheese and putting mustard in his eye: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j58C8Q4DVU

As you can see he makes an excellent chief goon.

Kalrand, quoted extensively in my previous blog post, will be CFO and is certainly a very sharp individual with an excellent grasp of the financial side of the game.

The Mittani will continue to lurk behind the scenes and react to crises. Here's audio of him explaining the BoB disband: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvwk4QncSG4

Drakban Solo is administrator of the Eve Goons' forum and wiki servers. They have an extensive and by all accounts excellent wiki and of course being a community brought together by forum posting they cherish their forums. He seems to be doing a solid job and the new Goon alliance is named in his honour. (No harm stroking the ego of the man who far more than the CEO could bring Eve goons down).

So the current leadership will be pretty effective. Of course if the goon rabble get bored of them again and want someone else put in it becomes a crapshoot once more.

No matter what happens (short of a complete ban on Eve on the SA forums) goons will continue to entertain the rest of the Eve community and to make CCP money by keeping their sandbox drama-filled.

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