[Bobboau]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8MuyMlT9hY

with the recent happenings between BoB and GoonSwarm I was inspired to make this animation using the daily generated influence maps from www.eve-files.com. the recent action takes place in the last 6 seconds of the vid, it has nearly two years worth of territorial warfare compressed into a minute.

for those of you not in the know BoB (Band of Brothers, the giant blue blob in the lower left hand corner) is/was the most powerful alliance in the game, until about two months ago when one of their leaders defected to GoonSwam (Something Awful forumites) the second most powerful alliance in the game taking a bunch of ships and cash with him, oh, and he dissolved the BoB alliance, meaning they all lost all of their territorial protection so GoonFleet could jump right into there capitals and **** **** up. BoB tried reforming under another name within a day, but it hasn't worked out so well for them.

you can see the effects of several different wars on a number of differing regions, you can see BoB getting pounded in an earlier war losing nearly half their territory before reclaiming it. in the north you can see a number of different alliances come and go. there is a cool effect in you can track migration of an alliance from one place to another, most notable GoonSwarm's occupation of BoB's old territory, almost completely abandoning their year's old homelands, and just before the fall of BoB you can see the TCF (brown blob) move from it's southern lands into the northeast takeing advantage of the weakened state of the aliances in that reigon. an interesting note is that it seems as though power is collecting into the hands of fewer more powerful alliances.

[Ashrak]

seriously fed up with eve, waste of time and money you can much better spend on drinking.

then again, bob was arround for well too long aswell, enough.

[Bobboau]

BTW I don't actually have an account, never played it, just having fun watching these fireworks sitting on the sidelines.

[Rick James]

I like MMOs where player actions actually affect the political landscape.

[Flipside]

Gave up on Eve in the end, it's a nice looking game, but it would be a lot more fun to play if it hadn't become statistician porn. Also CCP's vision of what is 'fun' appears to be somewhat different from my own.

Edit: Though I am glad to see some power-shattering, there were far too many big alliances, and, considering some of the CCP Staff were members of BoB, I always had certain concerns regarding their impartiality in matters regarding BoB.

[Mongoose]

I'd never really be interested in playing EvE, if for no other reason than point-and-click spaceship combat seems incredibly dull to me, but I find it fascinating from a sociological standpoint.  It seems to have become a microcosm of a real-world society/economy far more completely than just about any MMO out there, and the impact that double-dealing and backstabbing can have on the landscape of the game makes for some very interesting situations; I remember reading a lengthy article by an individual who managed to scam gobs of in-game currency out of a bunch of unsuspecting marks by claiming that he was going to buy and share some valuable ship's blueprints (pardon my ignorance of the game's actual mechanics).  I believe I've heard that a few real-life economists were looking into the game's events to see how they could be applied to real-world situations.

[Dark RevenantX]

EVE could have been the best MMO ever made, if it had layered the game more.  What I mean is, for a game as large as EVE, it should have multiple "shells", so to say, of gameplay.  The highest, of course, is what we are looking at in the youtube video.  And there are some more lower shells that become more localized, such as building ships and and all that.  Piloting and combat take up the lowest shell, and are unfortunately the weakest part of the game.  The lowest shell is ALWAYS the most important in terms of keeping a solid and enjoyable game, so the entire whole is based off of a weak foundation.  If more energy and style was put into the combat (see Jumpgate: Evolution), the game would be much, much better.

[Ghostavo]

I'd never really be interested in playing EvE, if for no other reason than point-and-click spaceship combat seems incredibly dull to me, but I find it fascinating from a sociological standpoint.  It seems to have become a microcosm of a real-world society/economy far more completely than just about any MMO out there, and the impact that double-dealing and backstabbing can have on the landscape of the game makes for some very interesting situations; I remember reading a lengthy article by an individual who managed to scam gobs of in-game currency out of a bunch of unsuspecting marks by claiming that he was going to buy and share some valuable ship's blueprints (pardon my ignorance of the game's actual mechanics).  I believe I've heard that a few real-life economists were looking into the game's events to see how they could be applied to real-world situations.

EVE is filled with this kind of stuff, makes you wonder how do people trust any other player in the game with their money. Although it's always interesting to read about this.

[Flipside]

That's my problem with Eve, it's supposed to be a game, and fun for everyone to play, the moment an MMO starts operating in such a way that that you , quite literally, get things like organised crime, extortion, protection rackets etc, I seriously began doubting whether such a game was really any 'fun' any more.

[Agent_Koopa]

Are you saying organized crime, extortion, and protection rackets aren't fun? 

Seriously, seeing concepts like this develop on their own, not "get X points for holding up innocents" is so completely awesome that I'd sign up in an instant but I don't like monthly fees.

[Flipside]

Actually, no they aren't, when it gets to the point where you are limited to a certain area of space that spans a pretty small number of systems, and leaving those systems and flying into someone elses space will get you killed on sight, not because you are an enemy, but simply because you are not an ally, you start to wonder why you are paying CCP to maintain thousands of systems when you're limited to about 4 outside of Secure areas.

That sort of thing doesn't really appeal to me, unless you are a PvP player, you can expect to spend most of your life in the kiddie-pool, and I'm not a PvP-er, never enjoyed it.

[Roanoke]

Given how seriously people  seem to take Eve, makes you wonder if there wasn't some genuine bribery (or similar) going on.

Or maybe the fella who defected just did it for a laugh. 

[Pred the Penguin]

EVE... society compressed into a game.

Very interesting to watch... I don't play MMOs though.

[General Battuta]

EVE is awesome. I love the stuff that goes down in this game.

Can't stand playing it, though. Last time I got a free trial, I canceled the tutorial, set a course for the frontlines of the BoB-Goonswarm war, and tried to see how far I could make it into nullsec before getting podkilled.

[NGTM-1R]

I'd never really be interested in playing EvE, if for no other reason than point-and-click spaceship combat seems incredibly dull to me,

But perversely realistic...

Given how seriously people  seem to take Eve, makes you wonder if there wasn't some genuine bribery (or similar) going on.

Or maybe the fella who defected just did it for a laugh. 

Apparently the director who pulled the plug was frustrated with the increasing "STOP HAVING FUN GUYS" attitude of his corp and BoB in general. (Lord knows I've seen perfectly good characters wasted because their players joined BoB and quit because they stopped enjoying the game.) So he did the Nuke thing: it sucks, therefore we shall burn it all and laugh uproariously.

[Solatar]

I tried the free trial for a few days, and didn't really like it. I figured for a person who didn't want to devote a HUGE amount of time to an MMO, one where that was likely to get me taken advantage of wasn't one I should be playing.

[Dark RevenantX]

Yeah, it's great if the game has all this kind of crap going on, but it should not compromise non-addicted players' entertainment.  Not to mention space combat is kind of fail in EVE...

[Agent_Koopa]

Actually, no they aren't, when it gets to the point where you are limited to a certain area of space that spans a pretty small number of systems, and leaving those systems and flying into someone elses space will get you killed on sight, not because you are an enemy, but simply because you are not an ally, you start to wonder why you are paying CCP to maintain thousands of systems when you're limited to about 4 outside of Secure areas.

That sort of thing doesn't really appeal to me, unless you are a PvP player, you can expect to spend most of your life in the kiddie-pool, and I'm not a PvP-er, never enjoyed it.

That puts the "role-playing" bit into "role playing game", I guess. What better way to simulate a lawless world of paranoia and high-powered weaponry than to have trespassers shot on sight? I suppose you could always pay off the corporations if you really want to explore. But if you consider making other players richer just to play the game a waste of time...

...well, life is like that, I guess.

[blackhole]

I'd never really be interested in playing EvE, if for no other reason than point-and-click spaceship combat seems incredibly dull to me,

But perversely realistic...

No, its just ****ing stupid. Real space combat is something like Forever War and is nothing that is even close to playable or fun. The fact that EVE tries to make its space combat seem realistic by making it mind numbingly boring is both incredibly dumb and something that shifts the focus from the action to the politics, so the entire game just becomes a b!tchfest for OCD crackheads.

[Flipside]

Actually, no they aren't, when it gets to the point where you are limited to a certain area of space that spans a pretty small number of systems, and leaving those systems and flying into someone elses space will get you killed on sight, not because you are an enemy, but simply because you are not an ally, you start to wonder why you are paying CCP to maintain thousands of systems when you're limited to about 4 outside of Secure areas.

That sort of thing doesn't really appeal to me, unless you are a PvP player, you can expect to spend most of your life in the kiddie-pool, and I'm not a PvP-er, never enjoyed it.

That puts the "role-playing" bit into "role playing game", I guess. What better way to simulate a lawless world of paranoia and high-powered weaponry than to have trespassers shot on sight? I suppose you could always pay off the corporations if you really want to explore. But if you consider making other players richer just to play the game a waste of time...

...well, life is like that, I guess.

Indeed, but the makers of it have got the whole 'social experiment' jammed so far up their rectum that they've forgotten it's supposed to be a game, and ergo, fun to play, unfortunately, at least for me, that was an aspect of the game that was rapidly dying.