EVE General Discussion

I've found it disturbing. The universe needs to bump up its destruction by an order of magnitude or even two. High Sec can never create this much carnage. Administrative and fiscal loads cannot be born with high sec resources and a casual player base. I just think its a fruitless endeavor to even try. If the machine was already in place its quasi conceivable that it could maintain increased activity but final throughput would rely on capital carnage. Despite the best thinking of our forum minds that the " bear can be awakened", I still disagree.

Whats needed is more Goons. About ten alliances worth. Another cluster of blues. This may be flattering to Goons but from what I've seen, they need to be emulated before they and their blues can be engaged on a continuous epic scale. Obviously copying goons involves more than learning how to post or gank hulks and generally irritate people. Those are products of their Alliance model, the ones we see. We have to look at what we can't see as well as Foreign countries and large corporations to do this. Its how the balance of power changes. For instance China studied The US's customs and values while they procured old machinery. They financed student to learn the sciences and practices and have done a good job recreating US capitalism... in a communist nation.

Instead of looking at Goonswarm at a national level, though that would probably be fruitful later, I'd like to gather ideas, conjectures and theories about Goonswarm the business. It is at this level that EVE corporations can begin to emulate. Sov mechanics would be working backward at this point I believe. But my beliefs are based on limited exposures to Alliances and subject to change with your kind and courteous rebuttals.

All knowledge and scientific progress unfortunately is based on assumptions that we have to accept. These assumptions can be argued but rarely proven. Good science is built on pretty good assumptions and bad science on bad ones.
Two assumptions I'm going to make for the purpose of discussion at his point are:

A: The purpose of an Alliance is to destroy Gross User Product, all other activities are to support this end.
B: All Alliance pilots are customers, the concept of membership economically applies to clubs, The club business model is too small and is inherently exclusive.

To understand something we should break it down into smaller pieces. Businesses have shown us the broader strokes and pieces of a megacorporation when Wallstreet unbundled and repackaged divisions. The primary way they divided these often intertwined divisions was by separating by customer relationships and what values they offered to them. Generally ending up with 3 companies, they eliminated anything that didn’t fit their focuses. Other companies were free to pick them up though licensing often preserved intellectual assets. Three generic titles for these divisions are: Infrastructure, product innovation and customer relationship management.

For instance in the Mid-90's a well known corporation, AT&T unbundled into three corporations. Before then it was a one-stop shop for everything about communications. They unbundled like this: Network infrastructure, manufacturing, Research and Development. Network Infrastructure had huge profits and was basically automated. They split manufacturing into NCR and created Lucent to do R&D innovations and forge new ground in networking. Lucent’s customers were businesses. Lucent is what was known as Bell Labs. Finally The frontend for most consumers see today is ATT cellular. Customer relationships are high maintenance, they are charged with getting new customers and keeping them.

Let’s look at Goonswarm from our new angles for similarities to these models rather than differences. Difference may well uncover weakness but we're not near ready to attack. Right now they are the cool kids on the block and we want to walk, talk innovate and build like them. In the end, they are not about EVE but we are.

Department 1: Goons before they are anything else are customers, The SA forums are the customer frontend like a cell phone store is the frontend of a telcom. It is cheap to maintain, the customers entertain themselves to but there some are noisier than others. SA forums offers access to a very large network of people and free entertainers that bridges the gap into real life interests. Its notable they have real money revenue streams that are both customer and advertiser based based on the freemium business model. The primary aim of Goonswarm is not to destroy GUP but to generate cash for SA. 150000 times 10 bucks is 1 and a half million American. In turn SA provides real world cash to maintain 3rd party infrastructure such as hosting and programming external to the game. Alternate revenue streams are separate per the Eula. Here we must be like Goons, our moral and fashion compass.

Department 2: R&D. Goons are innovators and content producers. The fruits of R&D are huge but inconsistent incomes. Its a bit like exploration. Research oriented Goons always push the edge of the envelope in game and on SiSI. This isn't for everybody but research pays huge gains with every expansion. While early adopter gains are fleeting, reduced lead times are become valuable. . R&D also attracts blues. T2, T3, new fits, new ships new fleet doctrines and incursion cash are just a few of the cash cows they have tapped into with R&D. As the SA forums are interdependent with in game goons. R&D recognizes the fluid nature of CCP's new offerings and the multi-sidedness of PVP/PVE and avid/casual customer segments. It doesn’t hurt the value of that 10 dollar membership fee either to access the “Premium Goonswarm Content”. CCP gets to advertise “Goonswarm Premium Content” as standard content and it becomes a nice mutual exchange of revenue streams. Like Goonswarm, we must bolster CCP's bottom line

Is there a gas leak in here?

Goons love it when people write lots of words about them. Even if they're dumb words.

Your Goon Worship is duely noted...

Sure, sure... Whatever you say Richard 'Lowtax' Desturned.

Bee's are SA pubbies it is true but how else do you finance out of game networks? There is nothing wrong. its a very intelligent way to stay within terms of the Eula without resorting to RMT to finance servers. Bees are my compass, I'm just following them home.

We need more Goons in Syndicate.

They aren't doing so hot and could use the help.

Over heard the OP a little while ago,

"They think I’m crazy; but I know better. It is not I who am crazy; it is I who am MAD! Didn’t you hear ‘em?? Didn’t you see the crowds?!? We’re not hitchhiking any more; we’re ridin’!"


Don't know about anybody else but I'm skeerd.

Ohh gawd, the wall of text, my eyes....

That diesel has his brain warped.