From a Titan's Birth to CCP's Folly.

Man, oh man. EVE-Online never ceases to amaze me. Talk about an interactive, immersive world. I am compelled to recount my experiences on this blog, even though I swore to myself not to add to it until I can finish my CSS facelift of it (because I hate this white/green/beige crap).

This article will remain unfinished, and in flux until otherwise stated. Sources are being dug through, and will be referenced where mentioned. Since forums read as reliably as hearsay, expect the finer details to occasionally be inaccurate, but I will continuously add to the pieces accuracy.

While the main point of this article (possibly to be divided into many posts) is to report on the recent scandal between CCP and their most powerful in-game alliance (or clan), I have decided to start my reporting much earlier, with the big event that first captivated me. I do this because (1) it thoroughly involves BoB (the powerful corp), and (2) to share the "reliving" of these events with other noobs like myself who haven't had the opportunity to scour the forums like myself.

I first joined EVE about a week or two before "The Steve" was completed. The Steve was the first Titan to be constructed. Titans are the largest ship in the game (also, about as large a ship as you can imagine. It takes considerable time to fly from end to end, even in a fast ship). The first titan was more than just a physical mobile (but barely) landmark. It was also a political one. The Steve was built by Ascendant Frontier (ASCN), the largest alliance in game. Not only was ASCN the biggest and probably the richest - they were so many times over (I have heard estimates of them being 2-5 times larger than the second largest alliance). Upon it's completion, ASCN bragged of not only a superior mining and crafting effort, but also an elaborate system of decoys and feints to mislead the saboteurs of other competing alliances.

This, by the way is about where I got hooked into the player driven political saga.

About a week or two later, war was declared on ASCN. Their new pride and joy would have to prove itself as a tactical advantage, as it immediately demonstrated itself as a bullseye. Who would declare on the biggest alliance around right after they built a ship with unprecedented firepower?

That would be Band of Brothers (BoB). Their reputation was that of the most highly skilled and organized of the alliances. Number-crunchers to the extreme, their fleets had won two consecutive Alliances Invitational Tournaments (I can't remember the real name, sue me). This was a war between the biggest, and seemingly the fiercest. And the fiercest was outnumbered big time. This was quite possibly, the most interesting, highest-staked war in the game history. So basically, I signed up at an interesting time.

Most wars take months. Big wars can go on for half a year or more. This one took only two months. The largest and richest alliance in game history was swept under the rug in only two months by an alliance a fraction of it's size. That is about as fast as you can move that many ships through space that vast - uncontested. BoB hadn't lost a single battle. The last days of the Pendulum War (capped off by a 3rd, and near flawless victory at the Alliance Tournament) were incredibly eventful. First, The Steve was destroyed, and in controversial fashion. CYVOK, leader of ASCN and arguably the games most brilliant architect of player controlled space, was ambushed by BoB while transporting the Steve. He was alone, or virtually alone. Losing the encounter, CYVOK was able to run, and save his multi-billion, multi-year long investment, by warping into the confines of unlabeled space.

There is in place a game mechanic to deter people from running from every conflict by simply logging off. A timer ticks after your first (and last) shot fired, or shot fired upon you. If you logout for any reason before that 15 minute timer ends, you ship does not simply vanish like it would in most games. It (eventually) automatically warps to a random point in space. Now whether or not CYVOK's computer crashed, or whether he was unfamiliar with the rule cannot be proven. Regardless, BoB hunted down the totally unresponsive Steve in it's random point in space, and killed it. Over a thousand helping hands built it, over a year from start to finish.... lasted about a month.

Then, as a result of in, and out of game frustration, CYVOK resigned, and left the game. The alliance couldn't defend a single system in wake of the BoB hordes, and ASCN was not only defeated, but totally dissolved.

The enormity of the talent, experience, and bank accounts of these people cannot be appreciated unless you've played MMO's for some time. But just to give you an idea, For the month the Steve was intact, it's estimated real life value was around $14000 USD.

The month after the Pendulum War was fairly quiet - or at least back to normal. Powerful alliances still warred with one another, but nothing as epic in scale as the ASCN-BoB Pendulum War, which affected roughly 1/3rd to 1/2 of the PVP starscape (as well as many of the more prosperous systems). This was to be expected, BoB's new empire posed many of the internal difficulties any empire must face when they annex massive amounts of territory. They had won it, now they had to figure out how to run it.

Then last week, BoB (seemingly from out of nowhere) declared war on another strong alliance - one that was already entrenched in a bitter war of its own. So three of the top five corps in the game were mixed into one awkward war. Players had wondered whether it was possible for one alliance to rule all of space. It seemed BoB would be closer to achieving this goal than any who had come before, and with the power they had amassed at the fall of ASCN, they might be virtually unstoppable. This was one reason that virtually all of the big alliances began to take sides in this war. But there was also another reason.

One of the alliances opposed to BoB in this great, as-of-yet-unnamed conflagration was Goonswarm. One of their members hacked into BoB's forums (among other things), and began to suspect foulplay on the part of the game developers. Long before BoB dismantled ASCN, they were accused of being on the favorable side of far too many coincidences. Most of these accusations are commonly hurled at any clan who dominates the competition in any online game. Most were without merit, and all where without proof. Until Kugutsumen of Goonswarm was able to find the proof.

While he found many correlations a bit too disquieting to be dismissed as mere coincidence, he apparently found cold hard fact in that a developers account had generated blueprints for BoB. After hundreds of posts demanding an explanation, CCP made two official statements about the allegations. One was an apology from the dev himself (T20 - same guy who wasn't able to get character portraits on the forums for months. Instead we had exclamation marks.), and the other was an apology from the CCP CEO, as well as some of the particulars of T20's transgressions.

What was clear was that one person had broken the rules. But everything was far from cleared up. For one, Kugutsumen, the whistleblower had been banned. And even though his accusations had been confirmed by all sources, his ban remained in place - since he hacked, and divulged personal information.

Interestingly enough, when SirMolle, leader of BoB had fought back in a previous forum post by doing the same to Kugutsumen, this was completely overlooked.

Additionally, the blueprints that had been confirmed as illegally given to BoB were comparatively cheap. It makes little sense that a developer would risk his job to experiment or donate items this inconsequential. There had been incidents in the past where CCP employees where terminated when they improperly involved themselves in the game. However, in this - the most agregious of cases thus far, CCP would claim that the events were too long ago, and that a less severe punishment had already been administered in house. As of now, T20 will keep his job.

Certainly, this only makes the CCP BoB connection seem that much stronger. Added to the fact that, according to CCP, these transgressions had been discovered months before The Pendulum War, and dealt with behind closed doors (it took Kugutsumen's evidence to turn their story around 180 degrees from denial and banning to admission and apologizing), and it is clear that if there isn't still in fact blatant bias towards (what has recently become) the most powerful alliance in EvE, then there has been an epicly botched job at smoothing over the appearance of such a bias.

As a result, various prominent veterans are quitting EvE (such as Istvaan Shogaatsu, architect of the Guiding Hand Social Club). Feelings of betrayal are running very high among players who keep up to speed with player politics. Meanwhile, the afore-mentioned BoB War has encompassed anyone who is anyone in PVP alliances. Regardless of whether the actions (or inactions) of BoB is in violation of game code - written or unwritten, what cannot be denied is that they have now provided the powder keg to set the entire galaxy ablaze with war.