Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Spy Party!


It was a few days before the weekend and Huola was unusually quiet. A passerby from Otelen may have never noticed that they had slipped from highsec into a warzone, as the only movement was the slow shuffle of space janitors, quietly cleaning up Fweddit graffiti from days passed.

Was it a sign of things to come? --The quiet before the storm of the coming weekend where Nulli Secunda would be pushing Tier four and the majority of the warzone would be flipped out of the hands of the Minmatar?

Or, was something strange at work, causing Late Night, and many others’ home base to resemble a ghost town?



Not long after Nulli came to town, the Minmatar became aware of an unusual ‘mechanic’ that involved ‘buffering’ vulnerable systems. Since the Minmatar had previously never held onto systems but had flipped them almost immediately upon becoming vulnerable, this situation had never been made widely known to us until then.

The buffer was such, that there was nothing within ‘normal’ game-play parameters that the Minmatar could reasonably do to counter it. Many systems were so heavily farmed by the Amarr, that some Minmatar estimated it would take days of solid, non-stop defensive plexing to bring the system out of vulnerability. (And then the usual time to plex down the contestation level.)

We were left with three options:

1. We could sit on our thumbs, and wait for Null Secunda to flip the warzone.

2. We could cry, and then sit on our thumbs in a puddle of tears—begging CCP to fix it so that we could have a fighting chance (as well as rage on the forums and in our blogs about how the game mechanics were against us) or,

3. We could look for something productive to do to deal with it, and have a bit of fun in the process.

Most of us chose option #3.

Therefore, while Huola slept for an evening, a party was going on a mere two jumps away in the vulnerable system of Labapi. Dozens of ‘Amarrians’ filled the system, chit chatting in local, laughing on coms, and slowly chipping away at the I-HUB. It was, at times, a bit rowdy –and hilarious when we were occasionally ‘reported’ …to ourselves(lol)

The plan was to flip our own systems ourselves, and then flip them back again forcing the Amarr to start from zero in many systems, and possibly delaying their ability to reach higher Warzone Control Tiers. Call it forced metagaming, if you will. Needless to say, who knows what would have happened if Nulli had delayed another week.

I tell you this, because it’s the first time I’ve heard in my five years of playing EVE of a group infiltrating their enemy for the purpose of taking space from themselves.

Needless to say, while the ‘experiment’ was successful, we’re not too keen on shooting our own I-HUBs. (Shooting the Amarr’s is work enough.) So, it is not surprising that a small cheer went up as Nulli started flipping systems Saturday morning.

At least we wouldn’t have to do it ourselves.

15 comments:

  1. We knew. We just did not care.

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  2. I suggested we do this two weeks back. But as Anon above said "No one cared." I called it Industrial Espionage, for those that needed a RP reason to go forth and flip out vulnerable systems into Amarr control.

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  3. It's something that was mooted around Amarr militia chat quite a bit. If leaving systems in vulnerable becomes common behaviour (which it probably will, Cal/Gal are doing the same) then I expect using alts to flip systems will become almost as much standard practice as having alts to plex or to spy are already.

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  4. Come on, everybody knew.

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  5. We (all) are abusing the hell out of FW mechanics atm, I hope somebody at CCP can still do something about it for winter.

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  6. Nulli was indeed farming vulnerable systems. But was it really a rational gameplan that we need to be concerned about? Nulli left half of the isk behind because they kept farming vulnerable systems instead of moving on to systems that weren't vulnerable. Not an approach we would like to repeat is it?


    As far as the strategy of flipping your own systems - its obviously double edged. To the extent you flip more than 20% you will deprive your entire militia of the ability to hit tier 5. To the extent you flip fewer than 20% you won't prevent/delay the other side from hitting tier 5.

    Even I had heard it was minmatar that flipped labapi. And the strategy had been discussed in depth on the forums.

    I think people who claim this will become tried and true strategy either haven't really thought it through, or they are just upset that the mechanics don't work like they want and just want to sling mud hoping some of it sticks.

    -Cearain

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  7. Hi amarr.
    At least us Minnie's don't cry bloody murder everytime something isn't in our favor.
    We are proud to suck it up and figure out ways to adapt.

    Silence

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    Replies
    1. 2. We could cry, and then sit on our thumbs in a puddle of tears—begging CCP to fix it so that we could have a fighting chance (as well as rage on the forums and in our blogs about how the game mechanics were against us) or


      lols

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  8. It seems that Minmatar militia currently seems to be busy fighting with each other, both in chat, and with guns(shooting one another because they can't stand the thought of sharing 25k LP).. over the LP for capturing plexes in already vulnerable systems?

    Frankly, I'm getting sick of it. There's too much internal fighting and drama with the Minmatar. We all make billions of ISK every tier 5 cash-out, why are we fighting with each other so much over little bits of LP.

    It's great that we can get together and get on Amarr alts to flip systems, but if we're so greedy that we fight with each other, that's sad.

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    1. Minmatar did such an awesome job recruiting for their militia that there are just not enough systems to plex. Everyone is stepping on eachothers toes.

      I think ccp should allow lp for defensive plexing and allow militias to plex everywhere. High sec low sec and null sec. That way minmatar won't be punished for doing such a good job in their recruitment efforts.

      -Cearain

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    2. Cearain, the internal fighting he refers to was already there before the inferno changes. egoistic, drama lovers withno true leadership to control.

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    3. Well I don't think they would be fighting about sharing 25k lp for capturing plexes before inferno.

      I'm just wondering if we will get a minmatar whine thread about how its a "backward strategy." The better you guys do at recruiting the less lp you have because everyone needs to share the plexes. Amarr has no such problems. It seems we can't recruit nearly as well as minmatar so we don't have this problem of too many people wanting the lp out of the same plexes.

      -Cearain

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  9. That bunker flip was agonizing. All told, it took about 7 hours for very minor gain.

    One thing I will say is: contrary to what a lot of Amarr have been saying, Labapi was not flipped in order to enable farming. It was an attempt to spoil the Amarr plans to flip the whole warzone at once. It wasn't really a success, as we discovered that attempting to flip a system w/ <20 coercer/catalyst pilots was extremely time consuming and prone to lost progress whenever someone would come by and kill everyone. Which is why it never happened again.

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  10. This post caused me to leave fw. Don't know who enemies and friends are. I'm sure its happening on both sides so I'm not singling out either side. I dont understand how anyone thinks its fun. To me there should be honor in war. I never had a spy alt. To me it should be 'fixed' but I don't if it can be.

    "Dozens of ‘Amarrians’ filled the system, chit chatting in local, laughing on coms, and slowly chipping away at the I-HUB. It was, at times, a bit rowdy –and hilarious when we were occasionally ‘reported’ …to ourselves(lol)"

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