BoB not BG

BoB not BG

What's all this about - that moron not having another go at the BGs? Kick him out for goodness sake OP, we dont need his kind in SWAT.

No fans, I can assure you I am well past that hate stage - I love you all now - no more hate in me - but dont get me started.

What's this about then?

Band of Brothers - BoB - a huge alliance in EVE consisting of thousands and thousands of players, assets even Dop in his wildest dreams could not imagine - get's a right kicking.

What does this mean for EVE? The forums and such were going crazy with Conspiracy Theory Inc coming up with a new story every hour - for a Crossfire goon - what does it mean Az? Why are you spamming our board again?

Hmm - maybe I can use some SWAT metaphors to describe what happened - let's think.

Cue hazy music and some fog, the drama unfolds with a single guy in his office.

He is OP, aka OPR8R, former leader of one of the mightiest clans in Freelancer history, well known and well respected. His clan is steeped in history going back to the midst of time, the Blood Guards, the Dragon, the honour and respect (my blah blah)

But the guy aint happy, he has not been "A OK" for a long time now. He has had disagreements with othe BG leaders for some time now and the differences between OP, Wavey, Gal (I cant remember the names so used these for illustratory purposes only) have not been resolved but simmer under the surface - like molten lava steaming and moltening for an eon under the hugest most gigantic volcano that ever existed, half a mile from the most populist conurbation major metropolis.

Breaking his own rules he starts a new char called "New Guy like pirate rp" and talks to Canoso and Amos about joining LP.

"Yeah I like saying Mwahahaha"

"Whiskey? Just tell me where and when baby!!"

"Fight and run away - yeah I love it"

"tax or die, Tax or die, TAX or DIE SCUM!! - see it comes natural?"

"dont worry mates - in BG I learned how to fight.. Oops"

Canoso does a headstand and flips onto the ceiling,

"Crap we got a spy, a BG spy and as he has only guns - it must be OP - oo er"

OP aint thinking straight and does this (see bullet points) - he has had enough - ENOUGH!!

"I will teach you Waves (see second brackets above) - you messed with me for the last time matey - Mwahaahah"

OP does this - which he cant do in Crossfire, but what someone in his position in EVE could do - and did do, and now there is a lot of doo doo.

1. OP takes every ship and every item in the BG stores (including the stolen 5000 Champ shields - just joking, I know you dont have that many)

2. OP takes the bank savings of every character in BG

3. OP disbands BG, so that BG cant even be called BG anymore - they are called KenZoku

4. OP gives all of the above - including the rights to the name BG to Canoso.

5. OP made public and free to access the entire BG forums going back to its very creation.

6. BG OPR8 is now LP OPR8R.

Well - that is sorta what happened - but imagine that thousands and thousands of people are affected.

It's a big event in EVE history - read this piece here for a more accurate/informed version - and if you want to find the truth of what actually happened - the truth is out there somewhere - but I cant find it.

http://www.eve-tribune.com/index.php?no=4_7&page=1

Anyway - no complaints please - just a story - BG and BG OPR8R are fictional chars and dont resemble real life people and I also hear or read somewhere and those two are getting back together again which is good news.

Quote

Originally posted by Jack Bauer
Somebody f***ed up a major EVE clan from what I understand, and defected to another one... leaving the members of that clan high and dry while taking everything for himself and his soon to be clan.

Bingo - but wasnt my metaphor more interesting?

The clans involved were totally opposed like BG and LP would be I suppose - it's not a prediction.

C mon guys - if you want the EVE section on SWAT to be interesting - it'll need a bit of work to get right.

I could just post links for info - but what you get from me is an original piece - at no extra charge!!

From a much better writer than I

Credit here : http://www.raphkoster.com/2009…/the-eve-upset/#more-2517

His piece begins:

Edit: I dont actually play EVE, just watch from afar. Ive corrected some errors below that players of EVE mentioned to me.

A few days ago, everyone wanted me to write about the massive destruction of the Band of Brothers alliance in EVE Online, and how Goonsquad GoonSwarm finally triumphed via an act of betrayal.

But honestly, another day, another giant EVE scam. Ho hum. Is there anything really good to say about this?

For the uninitiated: there was a huge aliance named Band of Brothers. There was another clan named Goonsquad GoonSwarm who hated them (edit: well, everyone, really) and worked against them, but was not nearly as big or powerful. Goonsquad GoonSwarm would recruit BoB members in order to scam them. A BoB member joined under these false pretenses, but then chose sides and rather than be scammed, asked to join for real and offered up BoB as his price of entry. He was a high-level admin of BoB, and he basically disbanded the whole thing, destroying it from within, and Goonsquad GoonSwarm made piles of virtual money.

The most intriguing aspect of the whole thing to me isnt the way it happened, but the overall social dynamics of it the fact that it was completely inevitable. Theres been lots of talk about how this was basically a sort of exploit, that one person should not have enough power to destroy the work of thousands. But Ill make the case that this is exactly what CCP should want to have happen.

Band of Brothers was an alliance, a network of networks, so to speak. It existed within a preferential attachment system, meaning that the clans of EVE are a system whereby the big tend to get bigger. A new entrant into the system tends to attach to an existing, larger group, over time.

Because of the external pressures of sheer survival, you tend to try to join a clan of a reasonable size, and then the clan gets drawn into alliances of a certain size, and so on. There is safety, and strength, in numbers, and the game system is essentially zero-sum for any given conflict. And given the way in which time equals power in EVE, there is a natural tendency towards growth, solidification, and continued existence.

What you end up with is an ecosystem with a classic power law distribution of social group sizes, a scale-free network which is extremely hard to destroy.

This isnt the first time we have seen this phenomenon in competitive virtual worlds. Famously in Shadowbane, single guilds would tend to come to own entire servers, because the game system there was also zero sum. The result led to boredom, because in a game premised on conflict, the notion of a single eternal empire is dull.

Scale-free networks are notoriously hard to kill. In fact, mathematically, if you start randomly removing connections in the network, you have to remove a ridiculous percentage of the total to make it cease to exist as an entity. This is how guild social structures can survive for years.

But there is a way. The characteristics of a scale-free network are that there are hubs. And the hubs are the vulnerable spots in the network. Take out hubs, and you can make the network fragment to disconnected bits, because the hubs hold subgroups together.

Band of Brothers was a hub, and the before-and-after images show clearly that separation into component pieces, each then no longer indomitable.

This was good for the game under its own terms, because the game is premised on conflict. In any PvP scenario which has a temporal component even one as simple as leaderboards you need to overturn the anthill or else you will end up with a static power structure. The guy who held the record will hold it forever. The top guild will stay the top guild, etc. This is why you often see leaderboards offer different time spans best today, this week, all time, etc. Otherwise, its hopeless to compare yourself against statistical outliers who always win.

In the case of something like a PvP-centric team-based game, theres really two ways to accomplish this overturn. One is to wait until the empire rots from within (security breeds carelessness, inattention, and eventually vulnerability). The other is to aggressively force the rot, by attacking the hubs and attempting to co-opt them.

This has been used as a business tactic: World of Warcraft consciously pursued the guild leaders of the largest and most influential guilds in its successful attempt to dethrone Everquest. By recruiting them over to the new game, they managed to harm the social fabric of EQ while also creating a ready-made community within WoW.

In the case of a self-contained (and richer) simulation like EVE, theres assets to worry about. The loss of one director might be a blow to BoB, but the real blow is the destruction of its assets, largest of which was the alliance itself, the groups identity, but which also include the money, ships, and so on. Without those things being scattered to the winds, there would be no overturning of the empire.

So unless a traitor can empty the bank accounts and disband the alliance, its very unlikely that BoB would fall. And the game, as a game, does want BoB to fall, because from a purely mechanical point of view, what is fun about EVE is the struggle, not the victory condition. The victory condition is boring.

Lots of folks lose their livelihoods when an empire falls, and players invested in BoB are likely upset that years of work were lost. But EVE is not a game about the height of the Roman Empire. Its a game about the sacking of Rome by barbarians, so that they can become the next short-lived top dog. BoB existed to be torn down, and anyone who dreams of permanent glory in a game like that should understand that their destiny is to be taken down by the next upstart, in a dog-eat-dog world.

If anything, the fact that it takes a betrayal by a single high-level user with extraordinary powers reveals that perhaps the network is a little too strong; it should have been easier for Goonsquad GoonSwarm to take BoB down, because the system as it stands now means that political intrigue is where the excitement lies, and that leaves out (in a power-law distribution of clans and alliance sizes) the majority of the users.

And for once, wouldnt we love to hear an EVE story about the single newbie who found a way to destroy the dominant political body through sheer cleverness and determination? Because the same-old-same-old stories of well-organized mafias taking each other down gets repetitive.

an update

the great EVE Tribune manages to get an interview with the traitorous director - (no more metaphors)

An Evening With Brutus:
An Exclusive Interview with Haargoth Agamar
By Miyamoto Isoruku

Haargoth Agamar is the former Band of Brothers director responsible for disbanding the alliance and stealing huge quantities of corporate assets from Black Nova Corporation. He recently sat down for an interview with EVE Tribune staffer Miyamoto Isoruku.

So the first question is: why'd you do it?
I got sick of the arrogant attitudes of the leadership and membership when honestly they had nothing at all to be arrogant about, and the leaderships inability to realise that BoB was no longer great, they were average.

Was there any particular breaking point? something they did that just pissed you off?
No, it happened over a period of months.

How long were you a director in BoB?
About 6 months or so.

How did you get to be a director in BNC? And how did you get director status in Tinfoil?
I got to be a director in BNC by fcing a lot. I fced a lot during US tz in the first Delve invasion. I had a character in Tinfoil to do refueling after or before capital ship ops and for some reason they gave me full director rights there when only CEOs should have had that.

What were your feelings about BoB when you initially [sic] became a director?
I was excited to see what the leadership was really like, I was disappointed.

What did you find disappointing about the leadership especially? You mentioned the arrogance... anything in particular?
They could not stick to a single plan, they would bounce around doing whatever thinking they could walk over anyone.

So what do you think of the MAX campaign?
I was only there for the beginning of it, I was unable to play for the rest because of work related reasons, but I think it went really badly.

How so?
The cap fleet losses, supercap losses. After IRON it went way downhill.

Initially the plan was to be a smash the north thing, wasn't it?
Yes. A majority of the BoB membership wanted to kill Morsus Mihi, because of their "arrogance" ironically enough. They needed to be knocked down a few according to most BoB members.

What is your opinion of BoB's treatment of its vassal alliances?
They treat them poorly. The weekend after I disbanded BoB was supposed to be a large standings reset. Obviously it did not happen because they need the numbers now.

Who were going to be reset?
Any member of the GBC without a 5% participation rate in fleet ops. Likely, AXE, Skunk Works, HUNs, SO-CO, CIIC among others. The only ones that I could not see being reset are EXE, SCA and warped mining, all the others had far below 5%.

Any other details you can give about treatment of the vassals, and general opinion about them within BoB?
They would redicule allies in command channels, basically saying that having them in BoB fleets is like invitng 50 spies in. And they refused to fly with GBC members towards the end. Only EXE was allowed to fly with them. The FINFL ceo had this to say:

k1lz FINFL Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 278 Default
IMO opinion the only alliances that are worth flying in BOB gang are:
1. Executive Outcomes
2. Southern Cross Alliance
With the following notes:
2008-11-05, 12:08 #21

Not much changed in the couple of months after that.

How did the GBC members feel? Why do you think they stuck with BoB?
I am not sure honestly, maybe they think they have nowhere else to go, and that would probably be right. Some of the more dumb ones think BoB is still very good, but they just aren't and people realise that now.

Now, BoB initially alleged that your account must have been hacked, because you were about to go on duty for the military and would not have had access to EVE. Care to respond?
HA: They still think I was hacked. I'll show you some of the emails I received today.

Greetings,
There are some people looking for you, and your life could start to become complicated. Concerned friends are just trying to protect you. Please contact me as soon as you can and let me know first, if you are OK, and next a good way for us to talk or mail each other securely. I must stress, please take this very seriously; I cannot give more details over email. I am using a disguised email address unrelated to anything EVE, but we shared MSN before you went away. Please look me up there again; we have much to discuss, and I'd rather it come from me before your Master Corporal.

Sincerely,
Slinktress/Llondon

followed by:

just wanted to be sure the rl Jon and old friend is OK. Still not sure if this email was hacked like goons do so much and happens in wow ALL the time. RL work friends will find Jon at some point to make sure he's fine.

So yeah. I think they have taken it way overboard over a game about internet spaceships to go as far as to say they will call my rl boss to find out if I had been kidnapped, when many friends of mine have said yes it is the real Haargoth.

I mean seriously, is it that hard to believe that someone would want to leave BoB when those is so many massive retards in there with huge egos about their skills in a video game?

And the funniest part is, they dont even have any skills at this game. They are fucking terrible.

Now, changing topics again. What everyone wants to know... Could you take us through the events culminating with the disbanding of BoB? Tell us what exactly you did, and how much ISK damage you inflicted directly?
Well it all started when I was getting recruitment scammed by Tamir Lenk on my alt. I was going to orginally try to get into GS to spy, and after paying the fee (which I thought I'd lose) he said, yeah you are pretty cool you can join [GoonFleet].

So I join with my alt, fool around a bit and have some fun. And then I'm like, I am actually enjoying myself here.

Had you been enjoying yourself in BoB?
Not really.

And this sort of woke you up to that?
Yes, I did not quite realise how eve could be less... serious business and just more about having fun.

So I decided to end up spying for them and maybe try to defect, and after a few days talking to The Mittani about options, we realised that I had a full director character in the executor corp. And that was just a chance that was too good to pass up.

So things speed up, and the next day. Late US tz we ended up kicking every corporation from the alliance, stealing BNC corporate hangers in H-ADOC and PR-, and Tinfoil corporate hanger, along with both wallets. Liquid isk value was 14B, [plus] 14 fully fit and rigged dreadnoughts.

Faction fit?
T2.

At least 5m of each racial fuel type isotopes, 30 battleships with 200 ish of each tech II large weapon and 1000s of other tech 2 modules, 30 interdictors fully fit, 15 vultures and 10 other assorted command ships.

HICTORS or light interdictors?
Lights, and about 12 Hics. And 1 carrier. And in addition to that, 100,000's of x-l ammo, about 40 pos, 5 faction pos (all large), over 100 large batteries, over 150 mediums, about 25 faction medium, and 25 faction large. And hundreds of other assorted pos modules. And 3x core x type hardeners for each damage type. And a corpum a-type eanm.

Thats the general stuff. There is also a ton of lower level bpos and bpcs etc and 500k cn cruise missiles. 1m spike L.

Goonswarm received most of the POS modules and some dreadnoughts, and the fuel.

Is it stuck in bob space or have goons been able to actually use them, move them, etc.? Im sorry, Kenny space.
Goonswarm has been using them all in delve.

So you nuke BoB, reset all of BNC's standings, kick as many members as you can... then what?
Set Goonswarm to blue, stole all that sht and waited to be kicked.

What have you been doing since in GS?
Killing some Kengoku and pets, generally just enjoying myself and doing whatever I feel like.

What is your opinion of SirMolle?
He used to be a good leader but right now his head is so huge that he can't even begin to undertand why his alliance failed.

Any other members of the BoB leadership you would like to comment on?
Tholarim seemed to be the only one that "got" it, about BoB not being great anymore.

Shortly before you destroyed BoB, AAA formed an alliance with them to fight Goons. What do you think AAA's fate will be? Do you have any comments on them?
I think AAA will do fine on there own. I never really fought much with or against them, so no other comments about them really.

Finally, are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Guiding Hand Social Club?
No.