Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Only the Beginning


There’s nothing like returning from vacation to be greeted by a warzone abuzz with activity. I logged on last night to see that more than half the Minmatar’s systems were vulnerable and that we had lost the long-held staging system of Kourmonen. In addition to this was a large quantity of new wartargets floating around bearing the Nulli Secunda tags. According to some Amarr, this null-sec alliance has nearly tripled the Amarr’s active pvp numbers. It is an interesting situation for the Minmatar, who were already frequently outnumbered in the pvp arena prior to Nulli joining.

I was soon barraged by various people ‘catching me up’ on recent events.



Apparently even with the newfound momentum in the Amarr militia, everything is not particularly peachy in Fweddit’s nerd paradise. I was forwarded some rather amusing mails and in-game corp logs. I won’t abuse your IQ by posting them verbatim here, but it appears that this don’t-care noob friendly corporation is suffering from the all too common reality of inactive and/or irate leadership.

Apparently, the last great hope for the Amarr will not be a fledgling group of enthusiastic new pvpers after all. Sadly, many will probably not even look back on Fweddit as even an all too common one-hit wonder.

Except for breaking records for local spam and name linking, as well as extreme littering, they have made little to no impact on the warzone.

This is apparently not the only drama filtering through the tumultuous Amarr ranks. While many are exceeding glad to welcome their new null-sec overlords, a few have realized the rock and hard place they are now between.

Ultimately, one of two outcomes will arise from Nulli being in Faction War, and neither are very good prospects for the Amarr. The first outcome is that they fail in their endeavors and do not reach warzone control 5. This would be a huge blow to the Amarr, and I believe that the impact on their morale could cripple the faction for a long time to come.

The second outcome is that Nulli succeeds. In this case the Amarr will have a new set of interesting things to deal with. First, Nulli, in grasping warzone control 5, will essentially prove every other Amarr wrong. Every Amarr who woefully claimed that the mechanics were set up to hinder an underdog from coming back—every tearful opinion claiming that the mechanics were ‘against’ the Amarr –will be proven as rubbish, if they haven’t been already just by what they’ve recently accomplished.

The Minmatar’s space is not the only thing Nulli will sweep through –the Amarr’s credibility will be irreversibly damaged.

The Minmatar, on the other hand, are in almost the best position they could be in. Many have already made their fortunes, so a lack of income for a time will be little missed, and the prospect of Amarrian space to conquer has many chomping at the bit in anticipation. After all, conquering space is much more fun, easier, and significantly more lucrative then defending it. An Amarrian revolution of sorts is just what the Minmatar have been waiting for, and essentially keeps us from throwing alts into the Amarr to ‘get the job done ourselves’ as it were.


As I look at all the changes and war to come –I smile. This week marks an important anniversary for me as a Faction War pilot –a period of time that I will be crossing where I will have been in the Minmatar for over a year –now longer than the period of time I spent in the Amarr.

As I reflect back on the question of why I chose the Minmatar –a question frequently asked by readers, interviewers, and general conversationalists, I find I have a much different answer then I might have once had.

They say that observing people under pressure is the best measure. I’ve now had the chance to observe both the Amarr and the Minmatar under great pressure. Right now, the Minmatar risk losing all their space to a null-sec alliance, perhaps even home systems.

The reactions I’ve seen from various Minmatar, especially my own alliance mates have made me both glad, and relieved to be Minmatar, and a Late Nighter.

I look forward to the next chapter in Minmatar history, and thank all the Minmatar I’ve flown with over the past year for giving me one of the most fun and ‘chillaxing’ experiences in EVE.

29 comments:

  1. The biggest benefit to Amarr sweeping through Minnie warzone is, of course, that I can pick up the two BS I stupidly left out there when I was in S I L E N T.

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  2. So Amarr victory=Minmatar victory. Minmatar victory=minmatar victory. Welcome back Susan! I was starting to miss your daily propoganda speaches. I hear Charles Manson is looking to run for president, I'm sure you could make him look like a saint.

    Almity

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    1. Saints don't win presidential elections. Pretty sure that's common knowledge.

      You make a good point though, unless the Minmatar had been blogging for months that controlling too much territory was boring and that FW needed to be adjusted, or that the Minnies should stop defending territory...oh wait, they had been. Almity reveals his painfully weak grasp of the obvious, again.

      'didn't want that space anyway' is a pretty cutting retort, unless it's true.

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    2. it's the puppet-master defense, they are running thin on excuses...

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    3. WTF are you on about? All I was saying is according to Susan the minmatar win no matter what happens. When they held all the systems they won eve. When they lose all the systems its because they wanted to so they could win eve.

      Everything that happens was planned to happen exactly like it happened. Give me a break lol

      Almity

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  3. Didn't want that space anyway?

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  4. HEY GAIS!

    BEEN OUT OF GAME FOR A FEW WEEKS!

    FWEDDIT IS FAILING! HAHAHAHAHAHAA LOOK AT THEIR LEADERSHIP!! NOT LOGGING IN!!

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!



    idiot.

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  5. You have no idea what is going on, sweetie. The men folk you pal around with are lying to you. lol Being on the Amarr side I see, first hand, all the QQ'ing going on from the Minmatar. The complaining and whining and just plain douche-baggery going on is freakin' hilarious.

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  6. Susna, all I have to say is this:

    http://chzmemebase.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/memes-soon.jpg

    (Please note that I am not saying most of Amarr militia are sheep. Only Nulli is. Trying to herd the rest of the militia is more like herding cats.)

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  7. Spoken like a true imbecile

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  8. "The reactions I’ve seen from various Minmatar, especially my own alliance mates have made me both glad, and relieved to be Minmatar, and a Late Nighter."

    Yerp, most definitely. Some people are sad/annoyed at the prospect of losing home systems but no-one is seriously stressing out about the situation. We know we're up against the wall but the mood of LNA&friends is quite up-beat and we're looking forward to more fights.

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  9. The Amarr team has actually put more system into vulnerable than we (Nulli) have. I'm none too keen on out dismissing their contribution.

    We're here for the money. The Amarr militia actually give a fuck, and it shows.

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  10. That thing about underdogs not being able to win: did you (or anyone else) really think that the number of underdogs suddenly would tripple in number? If we really outnumbered you before we should now be four times your numbers. That should not be neccesary to turn a warzone around.

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  11. I'm subscribed to all eve blogs and this is by far the worse, the chest beating going on by you is embarrassing, I'm neither in faction warfare or intend to ever be, but most other blogs I fin interesting this is poor to say the least

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  12. Im just here for poon pics. Oh wait.

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  13. This is just poor form.....

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  14. There are some pretty angry responses to this blog - its just propaganda over a game guys - no need to get bent out of shape over it all!

    For the record I've pretty much been inactive for a month or so too (summer, olympics, work etc etc yadda yadda) and so coming back to see the Minmatar warzone control crumbling and Amarr on the ascendant was a bit of a culture shock. But I agree with a lot that Susan is saying here.

    There isn't much gnashing of teeth and weeping tears from the Minmatar side. Old guard is looking forward to guerilla ops and seeing the Amarr needing to defend a vast warzone for a change. People are making plans to fight a defense, to adopt new strategies and evolve to the current state of the warzone. There is very little panic.

    I mean only people bitching I've witnessed is the obvious dodgy farming alts in the general militia chat who are probably run by the other side anyway :)

    So seriously Amarrians - don't get bent out of shape by Susan's blog - just play the game in space and do your best to reduce the TLF to 2 systems only and drive us out of lowsec. If you can do that you deserve a bit of applause regardless of any help you receive from Nulli (or whoever.)

    (back to watching the Judo.)

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    1. I'm glad the Minmatar are not disheartened, makes for more pew for me. Thing is Susan said the Amarr were broken many times. She straight up said we sucked. We had no fight left. We gave up. We lost the war because we just could not handle the mighty LNA.

      When Amarr was heavily out numbered and out shipped I lead Amarr on "gorilla" warfare and Susan mocked me for it. When you are down you do what you have to to keep people flying and having fun so they keep playing.

      Now its the Minmatar doing hit and runs(with some success i might add) nd that is now leet pvp. Its not that we are angry. Its that Susan is either a gold fish or the biggest hypocrite of all time.

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    2. Well to be honest, the times the Amarrians looked "most broken" (to me at least) was when you guys were putting more effort into complaining on the forums than in fighting in space. On the run up to Inferno it was a bit ridiculous to see certain prominent names spending all their game time shuttling ships out of the warzone and posting how broken FW was while the rest of us were fighting crazy occupancy battles every night in the core systems. Hence I think to be "broken" it mostly starts at home.

      But I never really believed in the propaganda about how hard the Amarrian's had it. Witness of my own eyes during the Kourm/Kamela battles showed that the Amarrians had the numbers and the will to fight when they needed to - and there really wasn't that much of a disparity between the sides.

      Post Inferno Minmatar got flooded with thousands of worthless plexing alts which inflated the on paper numbers but did nothing to change the balance of power in space.

      Perhaps some people might have mocked the Amarr for running "guerilla" ops but its simple good tactics when needed.

      Maybe it all comes down to roleplay finally. Amarrians look most natural flying with superior numbers in shiny golden ships and Minmatar suit best the hit and run guerilla raiding style with fleet stabbers, thrashers and hurricanes. Perhaps Minmatar looked a bit silly actually being the winners with warzone dominance just as Amarrians looked silly trying to play the outnumbered "guerilla" thing.

      End of the day what the fuck is "leet pvp" anyway. Its all just fun and games. I prefer the warzone challenging as a player (no matter how much my character might like to see the amarrians crushed entirely out of lowsec in game). But I'm looking forward to seeing the Amarrians with a vast occupation empire and the minmatar re-learning the cameraderie and guerilla smarts needed by a vastly outnumbered force fighting imperialist oppression.

      In a good way it feels like coming home.

      Hi there @ Hardin btw :)

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    3. The addition of thousands of plexers did have one important impact. Isk. While Amarr pilots struggled to keep Ruptures in their hanger Minmatar pilots had an almost endless supply of SFI's.

      Being an FC I saw first hand how losses affected us. Having almost no income pilots burned through there isk and ship supplies while fighting an enemy that just keeps undocking faction cruiser after faction cruiser.

      This has been my biggest issue with inferno. I have said many times Im ok with the winning side making piles of isk. But the lossing side should be able to make some.

      It also keeps us in fights. If one side cant afford to fight then boh sides lose out.

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    4. http://i.imgur.com/z6XNN.jpg

      Don't worry about it Jade, this isn't really about her points. Most of us agree that some are valid - mainly the ones about the Minmatar being able to easily come back when Nulli leaves.

      The flaming here is entirely personal. Susan is giving us lemons and we're refusing to make lemonade out of it. Instead we're trying to shove the lemons back down here throat, which is great fun really. Even some of her fellow Minmatar dislike the fact she gives us in the Amarr militia no credit or respect at all. It just makes her seem like an all around poor sport, whether she is on the winning or losing side. She is insufferably unpleasant on this blog, which seems to be the point of it - almost everyone admits she is a troll here and the Amarr get mad and the Minmatar laugh and jeer with her.

      Now we have the opportunity to kick her and her side into the dirt, even if only for a week or two, and we're taking it. Sure, it's going to be heavily influenced by a nullsec alliance that doesn't give two shit sabout the long-term welfare of our side, but who cares?! We win, they (mostly Susan and LNA) get to lose for a change! She'll never give us the satsifaction of admitting she hates to see this, but that's alright. I know deep down she is squirming a little, and it makes me sleep better at night.

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  15. "Nulli, in grasping warzone control 5, will essentially prove every other Amarr wrong. Every Amarr who woefully claimed that the mechanics were set up to hinder an underdog from coming back—every tearful opinion claiming that the mechanics were ‘against’ the Amarr –will be proven as rubbish"

    I don't entirely follow this part. Success by the Amarr after the addition of a thousand pilots does not seem to demonstrate that they could have been successful all along without those thousand pilots and that the game mechanics were not a hindrance to them as they claimed (which seems to be your implication).

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  16. As with everything in faction war the facts are a bit muddled. Susan may not realize it but Amarr changed strategies when it came to plexing and made great headway before nulli ever even joined. We had over 20 systems vulnerable and many more heavilly contested.

    Nulli will definitely be a great help in our efforts but I think tier five was doable without them. It would just take *much* longer. So yeah I think the current mechanics probably are ok and allow a losing faction to make a comeback. But there is some room for doubt. Of course if susan had her way she would change the mechanics that make a comeback possible - ie no lp for d-plexing.

    I was sort of expecting minmatar who defended the lock out rules to say they are happy they are locked out of their base. I was expecting Susan to write something like "I don't mind having to spend hours moving stuff in this game. I have been dying for an excuse to take my new transport ship out for a spin."

    But really wait until we flip massive number of systems and after every minor fight or even rat damage causes you to need to go several jumps just for a repair. Then tell me how great station lockouts are. I guess then Susan will say something like she was getting tired of the contstant battles and is happy she now needs to take a few minutes away from the action to repair her ship.

    -Cearain

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  17. So.. the day before you posted this, when I waved at you in local, doesn't count? I'm leadership, FYI.

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  18. https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=139982&find=unread

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  19. I will thank Susan for this blog's title reminding me of my favorite Chicago Transit Authority song.

    There was that nice?

    -Cearain

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  20. Fweddit is a DayZ corp now, Susan, and our leadership is very well represented there thankyouverymuch.

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  21. If your not playing both sides your dumb after they cash the amaar out the min alts start farming there are more plex when you don't control the systems after the amaar take the systems for their t5 push it starts over min that way they farm max lp you really have no idea what these bears are up to....no one cares about pvp just isk

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    1. Maybe that's how you feel or a lot of who you play with. For the Late Night guys, and everyone else I know. The point of getting isk is so you can PVP. The difference in having a lot or a little is only the ships you can afford to fly. Most of us that make a lot of isk you will seeing flying whatever we feel like flying, losses are part of the game. Gotta have fun with it first and formost, that's what makes it a game.

      - Dagren Darius

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