Wednesday 25 June 2014

Goonswarm Federation Kicked From the CFC

In what is perhaps the most shocking event to occur in the last eleven years of Eve, alliances once labelled as 'carebears' and 'cowards' have succeeded in doing what most of nullsec and all of highsec have been trying to do for the past nine years: destroying Goonswarm Federation.

It has emerged the leaders of various CFC alliances gradually became more disloyal to The Mittani following B-R5RB. They faced the constant humiliation of being called 'goon pets' by Gevlon Goblin, instilling the desire to be free in the minds of various alliance CEOs. The spark for the revolution took the form of a Snot Shot EN24 article. The Mittani began to receive obscene statements from his allies such as "are you going to kill us like to killed GENTS and Li3" and "why did you use our monthly tribute to pay for drinks at Fanfest?"

FCON, a capable C-tier, maybe D-tier CFC alliance, were the first to take a stand against the tyranny of their overlords. They demanded Goonswarm give them 50 systems of their space and never burn Jita again. Needless to say their aggressive rhetoric was beaten back by the silver-tongued Goonswarm directorate, but they then demanded that FCON reform their alliance and change their ticker to FGOON to make an example of alliances that do not worship Goonswarm.

Several alliances leapt to the defence of FCON. In a desperate effort to defuse the situation, Goonswarm offered to slash the 100 bil isk/month tribute for Dabigredboat's officer-fit Manticore fund by 5%. While this did pacify FA, it only infuriated the rest of the coalition.

After a tense week of standoff between Goonswarm and the CFC, Goonswarm realised they would not be able to withstand the assault motivated by three years of anger, and peacefully retreated to highsec. It's believed they will begin a highsec-wide ice interdiction, which will be done not by destroying mining barges but by mining and depleting the ice before it can be touched by highsec miners. It's believed most Goonswarm corporations will apply for asylum in The Bastion however, effectively killing the alliance. Test have been invited to move into Deklein, as of yet they have not responded.

Many expected N3 to move in on the severely weakened coalition now they have lost a third of their supercapital and capital fleet, 11,000 members and the majority of their block-level FCs. Instead, they were the first to extend the hand of friendship to the CFC by offering +10 standings to most CFC alliances and +5 standings to FA. Most of Goonswarm's leadership have retreated to a single mumble channel where an airhorn rendition of Beethoven's Symphony #5 has been playing for several hours.

Tuesday 17 June 2014

Brave Collective Change Recruitment Policy, Players Now Require Pulse to Join

In an unexpected move the Brave Collective, a primarily newbie friendly alliance, have changed their recruitment policy to only allow players who have a pulse and minimal brain function to join

The move has drawn criticism from senior Brave Newbies, who say it violates the spirit of the corporation. Indeed, when the corporation was founded sixteen months ago recruiters paid no regard to what species the applicant was, yet alone their mental age or their actual age. This amendment comes a year after the first revision of recruitment rules, in which only people who knew how to self-destruct could join the prestigious organisation.

Some argue the change in policy was logical after BRAVE became a sov-holding entity, with the threat of awoxing becoming a more important and prominent issue. By rejecting those with a non-functioning brain, it's expected there will be a significant drop in the number of Proviblock spies infiltrating the alliance.

Some fear that this could signify a change in culture in BRAVE to solidify relations with more experienced alliances such as Goonswarm Federation and NC. Test in particular have registered their disapproval. "Retards form the cornerstone of our alliance" explains Test diplomat Durrhurrdurr."Without us, this alliance wouldn't be where it is today; it would have been killed to death a long time ago."

This news comes just days after infamous elite PVP alliance Pandemic Legion announced they would now require an applicant to own at least four titans before even considering their application. Northern Coalition retain their stringent 99.9% killboard efficiency criteria, while most renter corps continue to accept people who are capable of remembering their password for long enough to log in.

Tuesday 3 June 2014

Two-Thirds of Players Believe Eve was a Better Game Fourteen Years Ago

A survey undertaken by bittervet posting site Kugutsumen.com revealed that 69% of Eve players believed the barely-functional prototype of the game in 2000 was better than the current iteration that haunts Tranquillity today.

All kinds of players had concerns with the last twenty-one expansions. Many nullsec players cited the development of the 'toxic' lag management system known as 'time dilation' as the feature that they disliked most in the present day. "Imagine what B-R5RB would be like if we didn't have TiDi. We wouldn't have been slowed down by a factor of 10x for the entire fight. Tidi does nothing. Anyone who says Tidi has revolutionised the scale of combat that can be experienced in Eve and ended the days when battles were won by those who loaded grid first is a fucking idiot."

Those who lived in the neglect of highsec didn't appreciate the direction of CCP's development for the last decade and a half either. "It all went wrong when CCP released the Second Genesis expansion in 2003" believes valued highsec resident Shikari Auduin. "From there it's just been downhill with every single expansion, with nerf after nerf after to highsec. For me, nothing could match the gameplay in Eve's closed beta. I have an IQ of 39" he added.

There's no doubt that this will once again ignite the debate that Eve Online is, in fact, dying. However it's worth noting that 24% of people believe Eve is better today than it was at the turn of the millennium, a significant improvement last time this survey was undertaken following the Incarna release, when just 9% preferred the current version to its predecessor. The players who changed their vote between those three years stated 'graphical improvements' as the main improvement to the game, with the V3 shaders and hull redesigns being a bigger hit than many of the larger features that have been released in the past 36 months.

Nonetheless these figures are likely to concern CCP. With 76% of people saying the game is either on par or worse than what it was fourteen years ago, many people are wondering whether the majority of the time and money spent on Eve has gone to waste since its conception in 1997. Unless they can turn the game around in the next few expansions, it's likely they'll face growing pressure to revert the game back to its embryonic state.