Epic EVE Online Battle Erupts Because of Missed Bill

[StewShearerOld]

Epic EVE Online Battle Erupts Because of Missed Bill

A huge battle between the N3 Coalition and CFC is raging after an N3 Coalition alliance missed a bill payment and left some territory vulnerable.

I will admit to having never played EVE Online. It's not that I haven't tried, it's just that the last time I did my laptop almost burst into flames from the effort. For real, you could have cooked eggs on it. My insufficient hardware aside, I'm nothing if not one who appreciates a truly epic space battle and, as time has proven <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121756-Massive-EVE-Online-Superbattle-Blocks-The-Stars>again and <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/123841-EVE-Online-Celebrates-Ten-Years-With-Giant-Space-Battle>again, EVE is often a hotbed for virtual conflict. For instance, in the real world a missed bill isn't much cause for alarm. You write a check and maybe get a bit of a late fee. In EVE Online, however, missing a payment can apparently lead to an interstellar battle of epic proportions.

According to CCP, the current engagement being fought in the system B-R5RB began when "an alliance in the N3 Coalition missed a bill payment for the system where Pandemic Legion is staging and storing their fleets." As a result "sovereignty [dropped] across the system leaving the station vulnerable." Sniffing out an opportunity, the CFC and the Russian Coalition moved in and captured the station. The subsequent fighting has apparently been pretty nasty with several trillion ISK worth of material lost. It has also, according to CCP's Ned Coker, resulted in the destruction of around 20 Titan warships "with more to come as the US timezone comes home from work."

While I fear that I'll probably never step into the arena of EVE Online myself, it's hard not to appreciate its intricate web of politics and alliances and how they can, in the blink of an eye, lead to situations where epic battle such as this can occur. Put shortly, it's fascinating to watch, even if the battle is being slowed down by in-game <a href=https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Time_Dilation>time dilation to make it more manageable for servers.

[Twitch=themittanidotcom]








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[SonOfVoorhees]

Love the stories but dont have the month to spend of boring gameplay to get there. I played WOW till till level 32 and it was a boring grind, some said it gets really good at level 50 and i cancelled right there. Im thinking MMOs are only fun if you have a bunch of your friends playing with you.

 

[Charli]

This game fascinates the fuck out of me. And I play and test MMO's habitually. But EVE really is it's own entity... it's so player driven and yet their drive pushes out some pretty epic (not misusing the word here) battles even when everyone is playing correctly, from the systems in place.

Sadly the interface is far too much of a clusterfuck and the systems so convoluted and detail heavy, (I am a WoW raider, I KNOW clusterfucks) for me to even consider treading down the rabbit hole.

@SonOfVoorhees: WoW's end game is where I get my jollies. The leveling is only interesting once you start to see the bigger picture and enjoy lore. If not, it's merely the time gateway, which a friend can help you bypass if you both agree to it.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

While I like the concept of EvE, I can't get into it. I don't have time enough to invest in it nor am I social enough to want to be part of a large consortium/corporation/whatever. I invested enough time into running a guild, being a raid-leader in EQ and WoW respectively at one point. I just don't want to do it again, I've grown since then and lost interest in this.

 

[Therumancer]

Love the stories but dont have the month to spend of boring gameplay to get there. I played WOW till till level 32 and it was a boring grind, some said it gets really good at level 50 and i cancelled right there. Im thinking MMOs are only fun if you have a bunch of your friends playing with you.

I'm more or less a solo player nowadays, and I'll say that MMOs are not for everyone, basically if you weren't enjoying watching your character grow in power as you played already, your not going to enjoy it when you get to the endgame, because no matter how many friends you have playing the end result is putting in a lot of time and effort to make your favorite character's numbers go a little higher.

That said, I find EVE kind of ridiculous, I've tried it a few times. Chances are if you got into EVE you probably wouldn't be involved in this kind of thing due to generally needing to be in the right place, at the right time, and part of the right alliance. What's more the bigger an alliance gets the more outright mercenary to it's members it becomes, what's more there is always a degree of paranoia among the leadership, thinking everyone is an infiltrator or whatever.

Not to mention that damage in EVE is a lot more lasting than in a lot of other MMOS, to some that is the appeal of course. That said, the trillions upon trillions of ISK being lost here are probably largely coming from low ranking corporate spear carriers, who are probably going to lose months worth of work for little or no gain whether they wind up winning or not.

I'll also say that last time I popped in, it seemed like there was a general proliferation of Titans, with people even selling (or claiming to be selling) them on open ship trading channels. At one point 20 Titans dying in a conflict would have been unheard of, heck there was a time when things like Battleships were kings of the spaceways, but now it's to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if the death toll reaches 100 titans or more by the time this conflict is over assuming these alliances are that huge. The impressive thing (to me) about Titans was less the ships themselves but the huge time investment it takes to learn to fly them well. What this means is that apparently the alliances fighting have members who have been playing for years upon years.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Love the stories but dont have the month to spend of boring gameplay to get there. I played WOW till till level 32 and it was a boring grind, some said it gets really good at level 50 and i cancelled right there. Im thinking MMOs are only fun if you have a bunch of your friends playing with you.

I'm more or less a solo player nowadays, and I'll say that MMOs are not for everyone, basically if you weren't enjoying watching your character grow in power as you played already, your not going to enjoy it when you get to the endgame, because no matter how many friends you have playing the end result is putting in a lot of time and effort to make your favorite character's numbers go a little higher.

That said, I find EVE kind of ridiculous, I've tried it a few times. Chances are if you got into EVE you probably wouldn't be involved in this kind of thing due to generally needing to be in the right place, at the right time, and part of the right alliance. What's more the bigger an alliance gets the more outright mercenary to it's members it becomes, what's more there is always a degree of paranoia among the leadership, thinking everyone is an infiltrator or whatever.

Not to mention that damage in EVE is a lot more lasting than in a lot of other MMOS, to some that is the appeal of course. That said, the trillions upon trillions of ISK being lost here are probably largely coming from low ranking corporate spear carriers, who are probably going to lose months worth of work for little or no gain whether they wind up winning or not.

I'll also say that last time I popped in, it seemed like there was a general proliferation of Titans, with people even selling (or claiming to be selling) them on open ship trading channels. At one point 20 Titans dying in a conflict would have been unheard of, heck there was a time when things like Battleships were kings of the spaceways, but now it's to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if the death toll reaches 100 titans or more by the time this conflict is over assuming these alliances are that huge. The impressive thing (to me) about Titans was less the ships themselves but the huge time investment it takes to learn to fly them well. What this means is that apparently the alliances fighting have members who have been playing for years upon years.

Seems more about the end game instead of the journey getting to it. I loved Elite 2, played it to death and some would find that game boring, but now i just dont have the time to kill on boring stuff. Rather be doing something interesting. Dont know if thats an age thing but im 36 and just prefer not to waste what time in a game just to get to a level that i can start having fun. So i guess you shouldnt play MMOs if all your thinking of is the end game. But i love the stories that come from EVE and how the community interact with each other. I think if they could put it into a tv show it would be one amazing sci fi show because it has everything from revenge, political and intrigue.

 

[Slash2x]

Yep still do not give a shit about you anymore EVE... You can not hurt me again....
OT so these stories will soon be replaced with Star Citizen versions of the same thing. But with real skill in piloting and marksmanship...

 

[omega 616]

Can I get some scale please? "several trillion ISK" whats that? I know a trillion is a big number but how long does it take to make a million isk in a none "min/max" kind of way?

Whats a titan war ship? Does it take an ungodly amount of ISK to build?

1,000,000 yen is only £5,881 ... so a million yen sounds like a lot, till you work out what it actually equates to in your comprehension. So, if I play eve for an hour will I have 5 isk or 5,000?

 

[vxicepickxv]

1 trillion ISK is just shy of 30 thousand USD so, there is much lost.

 

[Barbas]

This is one of those games that looks like it would be considerably less fun to play than it is to observe. There is an impressive scale to it, which becomes particularly clear during the massive faction wars, but it doesn't seem to hook me in.

 

[exobook]

Person in LoadingReadyRun chat just noted: EVE Online is boring as shit, but the news is amazing!

I think that sums up my feelings about the game quite nicely.

The Twitch battle coverage embedded above looks almost identical to what I saw over a half hour ago (because of time-dilation, I assume?), but the news coverage of the event is fascinating.

yeah and the fact its during the change over between European and American players so people keep joining each sides

 

[Firefly9007]

Can I get some scale please? "several trillion ISK" whats that? I know a trillion is a big number but how long does it take to make a million isk in a none "min/max" kind of way?

Whats a titan war ship? Does it take an ungodly amount of ISK to build?

1,000,000 yen is only £5,881 ... so a million yen sounds like a lot, till you work out what it actually equates to in your comprehension. So, if I play eve for an hour will I have 5 isk or 5,000?

A new player can learn to fly a titan with about 167 days of concentrated training (putting all other useful skills aside) but it will take much longer to be a good pilot. A titan costs about 70 billion ISK. A new player will be doing very well for himself if he can make 10-15 million ISK in an hour. Building a titan requires the cooperative effort of a large number of people all working together for several months.

There is an item in game called PLEX which costs $19.99 USD, can be traded in game (current price is about 650 million ISK), and can be used for 1 month of game subscription. Using this we can figure a titan is worth about $2000 USD. This means the 27 titans killed at this point would be worth about $54,000 USD.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Yeah, I can sympathize. The last time I missed a bill payment, there was a bunch of explosions and property damage as well.

EvE has always been too high-stakes for me to want to get very involved in... but it's always fun watching what craziness goes on in the upper echelons of the game.

 

[stringtheory]

Can I get some scale please? "several trillion ISK" whats that? I know a trillion is a big number but how long does it take to make a million isk in a none "min/max" kind of way?

Whats a titan war ship? Does it take an ungodly amount of ISK to build?

1,000,000 yen is only £5,881 ... so a million yen sounds like a lot, till you work out what it actually equates to in your comprehension. So, if I play eve for an hour will I have 5 isk or 5,000?

Let's see a plex (30-day subscription extension) costs $20 and goes for 650,000,000 ISK in-game (yes you can maintain your subscription using in game money). So assuming at least 3 trillion isk was lost that would be the equivalent of 4,615 plex, times $20 each equals at least $92,307...that's a lot of money...

A titan is the largest ship class in the game, and generally takes a well-off well-coordinated corporation months to build and worth around 5.5 billion isk so that would be around 8.5 plex, which would be $169 each, not including the massive amount of time you'd have to train the required skills in order to even pilot one.

Starting off you generally be making at most 100k ISK per full load, while if you're a veteran with a lot of skill points in mining and/or refining, with a good mining ship and modules on it, refining at a station with low fees, you'd probably be making millions of ISK per full load.

So yes that's a fuck ton of money.

 

[BaronIveagh]

I'll be honest, I long ago came up with the universal best way to play EvE. Build and sell ammo. There is NEVER a lack of demand.

 

[BrotherRool]

I believe this is the greatest amount of Titan losses in EVE ever. In 2 years of reporting I think there's only been two occasions when 18 Titans have been lost in a week. On average only one or two are ever lost per week and it's normally lone Titans being tracked by spies and then ganked with massive fleets. Alliances almost never commit them to big battles unless they can guarantee victory, because a single Titan is months of work to make. I'm kind of surprised that both coalitions thought they could win the fight and put their ships on the line like this

 

[BrotherRool]

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=21599189
Take a look at the list of pilots on each side

That's not what happened one coalition attacked were the other coalition was storing most of there ships. That's why the losses are so high ( 23 N3 - 10 CFC Titan losses at 23:00 GMT )

Oops =D I'm really thick, do you know the significance of it being a staging system absolutely didn't click?

 

[kajinking]

"You got a lotta nice territory here. Lots of planetary customs offices, ice fields for station fuel, even some factories pumping out T2 ships. It'd be a shame if for some reason a fleet of Supercapitals were to suddenly appear and start breaking all your nice things if certain "payments" were to be missed...understand?"