Devilish Ledoux
Caldari
The Illuminati.
Pandemic Legion
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Posted - 2009.06.18 13:59:00 -
[1]
I didn't fight this war (well, I've been helping to clean out towers in 49-, but that doesn't count), but I've followed the conflict between BoB and Goonfleet since it was new. Also, BoB (through MC) helped kill my first alliance (The Big Blue), so I've been following them on and off for most of the time I've played Eve. Based on that outsider's knowledge, here's my own little post-mortem. It's almost certain to be based on one or two faulty assumptions, but this is CAOD, so v0v
I think that BoB's biggest mistake was a dependence on things that should not have been depended upon. Examples include:
1) A dependence on game mechanics that could be (and often were) changed on short notice.
2) 'Superior' knowledge of said game mechanics and the strategies and tactics that were based on them.
3) A strategy of recruiting the most effective pilots and most valuable resources from their vassals, with the intention of shifting all local strength to themselves.
4) The belief that their reputation (combined with the previous brain drain) would be enough to keep their vassals/pets/allies surbordinate to their will.
4) The belief that they could do whatever they liked to weaker alliances without consequence.
5) Finally, the belief that the safeguards placed within corporate/alliance mechanics (for exmaple, shares) could be ignored or avoided for the sake of expediency (or for whatever reason).
Also, I think that there was a dependence on the 'batphone' (direct or semi-direct contact with the development team) and idea that they had an understanding of the direction that the development team wanted to the game to take. I don't mean that in a "the devs liked BoB best" way. I mean it more in the sense that many of BoB's old guard were recruited from among people started playing during a time when the player base was smaller, when player/dev relationship was much more collegial and when the walls that exist now between game maker and game player weren't nearly as high as they are today.
The players who formed what became BoB (and other players from that time) were able to contact the developers with their suggestions, complaints and ideas and have a high expectation that they were being listened to. This isn't cheating, but it can foster a belief in players that they DO help control to some degree. Getting a line to God for events (that provided generous rewards), a heads-up on new features that provided massive potential for profit and other similar phenomenon occured back before most of us had even heard of Eve, but they provided a massive advantage to those players that benefited from them.
The fact that old-school members (many of whom formed the backbone of BoB) took advantage this largess isn't, in my opinion, cheating. I can't blame them for taking advantage of the goodies that the devs handed out back then. In their position, I'd have done exactly the same thing, and I would have used every inch of the advantage that such things provided me. It was short-sighted on the part of the developers, but I can understand why they wanted to do special things for the Eve community. I think that, by and large, CCP has done its best to level the playing field. I don't think BoB's founding members ever thought that their advantages would be erased so quickly, but it turns out that what Molle used to say was right: Those who cannot adapt become victims of evolution. He just forgot to take his own advice.
Okay, feel free to pick that apart. It's almost certainly wrong on one level or another. Also, in before TL;DR. |