Monday 30 November 2015

The Imperium unveiled

It's been an interesting last few weeks in the Eve meta game.

Hot on the heels of Eve Vegas, Mittani Media  announced a new project, a book about the Test-CFC Fountain War of 2013. This initially met widespread acclaim from a range of science fiction and gaming celebrities. Even the leader of Test alliance, Sapporo Jones, supported the project.

The project then received a Kickstarter page which was, frankly, tacky.

Then /r/eve started to rail against the project. There was much to point at. It was clearly a vanity project for the then CFC, now the Imperium's, famously narcissistic leader, The Mittani. It was likely to slant towards the CFC side even if it tried not to be biased and with the Goons publishing the book many in the community didn't trust it not to be biased. It was garishly and greedily monetarised.

People brought up The Mittani's past sins and the dull state of nullsec, with the concern that the bloated coalition is being kept bloated against the good of the game so that its members can be monetised, the captive audience kept captive by a policy of deliberate stagnation. The case was, perhaps, not helped by an insurge of Imperium Eve players posting for their first time or after long absences about how much the Eve reddit community should support the book, a community which the day before they hadn't particularly been a part of. Jabber pings were leaked amidst allegations of "brigading."

The project faltered. After a healthy first 24 hours people supporting the kickstarter dried up almost completely.

More scandals emerged. Endie and Xander has a conversation which accidentally fell into public hands where Endie spoke of RMT. Due to diligent journalism by Gevlon it now looks as though that was faked at least in part, with Endie perhaps playing the famously leaky Xander to reach his audience indirectly. Nonetheless there have been genuine rifts within The Imperium and the current direction - for real world profit - is not universally supported.

Possibly the greatest embarrassment has been to the leadership of Goons concerning their relationship with author Jeff Edwards. Mr Edwards is an enthusiastic author, well respected in the literary community with admirers like household name Clive Cussler, and a distinguished former US Navy officer who consults for the Department of Defence. I imagine that in recruiting him, Mittens and the others bigged up Eve. It's a unique game where great empires clash in high stakes conflicts that can destroy hundreds of thousands of dollars of virtual assets. It's an emergent dynamic economy that is studied by academics who draw parallels to real life, etc etc.

Then Mr Edwards met some very civilised and charming people at Eve Vegas and developed more enthusiasm for the project.

Then he met /r/eve and discovered hundreds of jibbering monkeys hurling poo at him.

For Mittens and his friends it must have been as if a young man meets a charming young woman, a refined and distinguished person with impeccable manners and taste, nervously brings her home to meet the family hoping they won't show him up, leaves her alone for 5 minutes then finds her outside in the back garden where his hick cousin has his zipper down and is proudly showing her his genital warts. An earth open up and swallow me moment.

This used to happen with roleplaying games back in the 80s. For a while they became in some circles very pretentious. So some young man would try to impress a non-gamer girl with a description of a kind of immersive interactive unscripted improvisational theatre then when she actually got to meet other gamers they'd say things like "watch me stick my d20 up my nose."

The Mittani is not, it seems, inclined to handle disappointment meekly. He gave an emotional and angry speech to "His People" and led them forth to.... well, not much as his intended opponents, Pandemic Horde, melted away under the masterful misdirection of Gobbins, who has cheekily taken to calling them "The Emporium."

The vast armada invaded Cloud Ring and pushed from there into low sec. In low sec they conquered a number of money moons.

Then last night a group of players naively arranged a charity event, involving sacrificing a titan only to have it obliterated by a massive Imperium force.

Well you didn't really think they were nice guys, did you?

7 comments:

  1. "...a group of players naively arranged a charity event, involving sacrificing a titan only to have it obliterated by a massive Emporium force. Surprise surprise...

    I have to admit... I really wanted to join in on this event but it was scheduled for my 3PM and I work until 6PM so I figured I'd miss the Titan kill anyway... but then, with the Mittens'es Book Deal 'thing' going on, and Gewns being Gewns 'n all... well, I can honestly say I did wonder a bit if that Titan would get "ganked" out of spite... really sorry to see I was right.

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  2. The funny thing about the charity event is that the actual organizers seemed fine with The Imperium dropping in, noting wryly that the event had been staged where it had been for a reason. Only the perpetual "Grrr, Goons" outrage machine at Reddit seems bothered by it, and they certainly spent no time looking at how many Goons were pictured on the list of donators to the cause. Just look at all those Reavers in their Interbus Jackets for a start.

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    1. I wish they had not... for the simple reason that for the most part, only nullsec players are gonna get a shot a shooting Titans... the rest of us, Hi, Lo and Negsec players don't play in the space where Titans fly...

      This type of event would be amazing if only Empire and Anoikis players could take part, as a way for them to also experience what it is like to fly in a Titan fight...

      And yes I know, we could always sell our souls and join some null affiliated corp and fly in the End Game Space of EVE... except I don't believe any of that anymore than I believe Mittens... ever.

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    2. OK, good to hear that side of it. Thanks Wilhelm.

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    3. The really interesting question about the complexion of reddit is "Why did reddit become so anti-Goons?" It didn't just "happen"; it is as it is as a result of the vitriol and the role Goons have played up as the bad guys. They've sowed hatred of them, and reddit is just one reaping.

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    4. The really interesting question about the complexion of reddit is "Why did reddit become so anti-Goons?" It didn't just "happen"; it is as it is as a result of the vitriol and the role Goons have played up as the bad guys. They've sowed hatred of them, and reddit is just one reaping.

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  3. @Turamarth Elrandir - Then you should complain to the people who knowingly setup the event within capital jump range of The Imperium's staging system. That seemed to be a premeditated choice to increase participation.

    Then there was the point of the event, which was to raise ISK for charity, and who has more ISK than the soulless null sec residents you apparently so despise? I know Karma Fleet alone kicked in 5 billion ISK. I put in 100 million myself and I didn't even show up. How much did your corp donate?

    In any event, people who participated got the full null sec experience, with titans, tidi, additional capital ships, including a few supers (and a Revenant of all things, the rarest of rare supers), and over 1,600 players on each of the main kill mails. It was a spectacle.

    Yes, you didn't get the exact event you wanted. But this is EVE, we never get exactly what we want. Nobody does.

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