Glorious Propoganda

In the aftermath of BoB/KenZoku's final acceptance of defeat in the 'Great War', EVE's CAOD forums has seen many of the Goonswarm Coalition announcing they are returning home...

In a way this reminds me of the atmosphere in Lord of the Rings after Sauron was defeated. It's all very melancholy with all the old friends departing - kind of like the hobbits returning to their normal humdrum life in the Shire and the Elves leaving Middle Earth forever via the Grey Havens. I guess it is the RPer in me!

To mark the ending of the war Razor Alliance PR gurus have published the latest in their series of excellent propoganda posters. I am copying it below for your amusement:



If you like that you can view the back catalogue of Razor propoganda posters here.

Rebranding - Reloaded

As mentioned in my last blog, the alliance formerly known as Band of Brothers (BoB) and then briefly as KenZoku (or Kenny to its many detractors) has had its name formally changed to Band of Brothers Reloaded. This follows the incident when a Band of Brothers Director switched allegiance to Goonswarm and in the process disbanded the old BoB alliance. In the immediate aftermath Goons created an 'alt' alliance with the Band of Brother's name, preventing Band of Brother's from officially reclaiming the name.

The Band of Brothers Reloaded rebrand has caused quite an uproar in the world of EVE as GM's have in the past been extremely reticent in allowing alliances to change name (or even change parts of their names). In this particular case a number of the rules which have been applied to prevent name changes in the past were apparently put aside by the GM's. This has led to calls for the alliance to be disbanded!

Now as followers of the world of EVE may recall CCP (the game's developer) was embroiled in a bit of a scandal a few years ago when it turned out one of the development team (who was playing the game) spawned a number of rare items for his alliance at the time - which just so happened to be Band of Brothers.

This latest incident of apparent official support/favouritism for an ingame alliance has therefore stirred gigantic emotions - even if the ingame consequences of the alliance name change has no significant ingame effect on anyone playing EVE.

CCP did issue a statement:

GM Grimmi

Yesterday we changed the name of the alliance KenZoku to Band of Brothers Reloaded as the result of a petition by their leadership. It has come to our attention that this was not a popular decision among some of our players and we’d like to take this opportunity to address those issues.

We have previously changed names provided a petition was created within a reasonable timeframe and the situation warranted such action. The leadership of KenZoku/Band of Brothers did petition us immediately after they were disbanded and their name was taken. While we worked on the petition for about two months we do not feel that they should suffer because of that. Having them disband and lose sovereignty again was not deemed appropriate in this case.

This action was limited to changing their name, as we have done before for others - we did not assist them in regaining their sovereignty after the Band of Brothers alliance was disbanded, nor did we assist with that now. Any other corporation or alliance finding themselves in the same situation would get the same treatment.

GM Grimmi
Lead Game Master

Many are disputing this CCP statement and have quoted historical examples where other alliances have not enjoyed the same treatment that BoBR seem to have received in this instance. Clearly the accusations that CCP favours BoBR over other ingame alliances has only been strengthened by this latest incident!

Less seriously, it turns out that when Band of Brothers Reloaded is turned into an acronym it becomes BOBR. While this may not seem that amusing to English speakers it turns out that bobr = beaver in Russian (and EVE has a large Russian player base). As a result Band of Brothers Reloaded is already being called the 'Beaver' alliance by many of its numerous detractors.

Others have also pointed out that the 'Reloaded' in the name is a clear reference to the Matrix sequels - sequels which have been widely condemned as being a lot worse than the original!

I don't think this 'rebrand' is likely to win any marketing awards in the near future!

For more commentary on this check out the following two blogs:

Casiella's - Controversy Reloaded

Kirith Kodachi’s - What’s In A Name

A hole in the dike?

According to this CAOD thread -

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1031254

- some cracks are starting to appear in the anti -A- / BoBR (will explain the new name later) block.

(EDIT this Scrapheap thread has some interesting snippets too:
http://www.scrapheap-challenge.com/viewforum.php?f=34)

According to the thread Intrepid Crossing (known as IRC) and Etheral Dawn (known as ED) have teamed up with The F0undation to launch an attack on Red Alliance holdings in Innsmother.

Red Alliance are one of Goons oldest allies but were (according to general consensus) much weakened by the 'Russian civil war' which saw a Against all Authorites (-A-) and other Russian groups move into the BoBR camp.

This perceived weakness, combined with the fact that Goons have pretty much abandoned their old holdings bordering Red Alliance space may have presented ED/IRC with a 'land grab' opportunity which was just too good to miss!

According to the thread Goons have now reset their standings with ED and IRC and are publicly talking up their intention of assisting Red Alliance. The main problem that Goons face is that they are currently engaged against -A- and BoBR in Querious and may not have the capacity (at least in the short term) to assist Red Alliance.

Obviously there are many other alliances which could assist Red Alliance. The other Drone Region alliances (who are also nominally part of the Goon block) may feel pressured to assist Red Alliance. Whilst the Northern Coalition (NC) may also lend the Russians a hand. Certainly the French Tau Ceti Federation (TCF) (a major NC member) has historic ties with Red Alliance.

However, as I am not an expert on Drone Region politics, I have no idea what relationships IRC/ED/Foundation have developed as well, nor any clue on how strong all those 'historic' ties actually are post the Russian civil war! There could be any number of interesting permutations. Some could even argue that the Red Alliance contribution to the Goon block has declined so significantly that it wouldn't really make a difference to the anti -A-/BoBR block if they did lose their space anyway!

From my 'neutral' perspective the decision by IRC/ED to attack Red Alliance is certainly a 'welp' moment for them - which could either result in them expanding their territories signifcantly - or being wiped off the 0.0 map completely! Obviously their leadership felt it was the right move but they will be judged by history!

While IRC/ED may not have been the most active members of the Goon block (at least that is what Goons are saying now) they certainly weren't putting any obstacles in the path of those focused on the decimation of the -A- / BoBR block. The fact that they could 'potentially' distract forces from other front does represent a small hole in the dike.

It will be interesting to see if the hole is plugged rapidly - or whether this war indicates a new phase of localised territory wars as alliances take their eye off the big picture and put the needs of their own alliances ahead of a continued campaigning against -A-/BoBR forces...

Time will tell...

ps. If you are involved in this war and you want to enlighten me with any insights feel free to email me at amarrhardin@gmail.com.

The Great War - Goonswarm vs Band of Brothers

Way back in December 2007 I started a thread on the Total PC Gaming Forums about EVE's 'Great War' between Band of Brothers (BoB) (and friends) and Goonswarm (and friends), which had already been raging for over a year by that stage.

I have since updated the thread on a relatively frequent basis as the war has progressed and as such it is a relatively accurate and objective 'history' of the Great War written from a 'neutral' perspective.

It will have some inaccuracies and distortions as I did have to rely on third party forums for much of the material and deliberate misinformation for strategic and propoganda purposes is as much part of EVE warfare as it is in the real world. Nevertheless it is possible to sift much of this and while some details may be slightly off it should provide a reasonably solid 'big picture' overview of the conflict and its roots.

One area which is not covered well in the thread is BoB's 'MAX Damage' Campaign against the Northern Coalition after the initial 'failed' assault on Delve. This coincided with a period of relative EVE inactivity on my part.

As the MAX campaign is generally perceived to have failed its impact in the grand scheme was relatively limited, apart from the fact that it helped unite the Northern Alliances and gave them a new determination to assist Goons in seeking BoB's destruction.

Similarly, the pact between BoB and Against All Authorities (-A-) in late 2008 is not mentioned, nor the fact that until Goons 'disbandment' coup (as written about by the BBC here) BoB, and allies had been pushing Goons remorselessly backward with Goon activity and participation tailing off.

With KenZoku (the BoB successor) now pretty much eliminated from any sovereignty responsibilities in 0.0 many people are claiming that the 'Great War' is over. Certainly the picture is very bleak for them. But with over 3,500 veteran pilots on its roster I believe talk of the Great War's conclusion may be slightly premature - particularly as -A- and other BoB allies still maintain significant 0.0 holdings (much of which were taken off the Goons or Goon allies).

Will the Empire strike back?