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A Plea to Reason: Allow Hydra and Outbreak to compete
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Gunnar Twenty
Doomheim
#1 - 2012-05-26 21:37:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Gunnar Twenty
Preamble

It's no secret that people at the top of most skill-intensive activities tend to be ones with an imbalanced lifestyle. You have to dedicate yourself fully if you want to be the best at something, often at the expense of life's other priorities. Principally for this reason, I have only ever played EVE intermittently and casually. I was always enticed by "internet spaceships" and its associated community on an abstract level, but the hands-on experience of EVE's game mechanics, the logistics, and the long hours of commitment required to reap the rewards of good PvP somehow always wore me down in short manner.

I was on a longer than typical hiatus from the game when I was informed that Hydra had been disqualified from AT10. My heart sank with this news. Some pilots in Hydra I've known intimately for over a decade (in fact I convinced Duncan Tanner to stick with EVE after he initially found it unbearably dull and lifeless running L3 missions in his Brutix), some I now socialize with outside of the game as a result of it, but near unanimously I have become acquainted with the kind yet driven nature of the members in this Alliance.

Immediately I started mulling on how I might possibly lend help to Hydra's plight. I figured my best bet would be to write an impassioned speech and resub so I could login and post it in the EVE Forum. So here goes.


A Call to Reason

I am going to try my best here to inject some much needed perspective into this issue. There's a lot of hateful fumes flowing around, and this is my attempt to clear the air. It might well be a futile one, but I intensely hope Sreegs, the AT10 governance team, or even someone higher up at CCP perusing these forums might be impacted to remediate, despite their current reluctance to negotiate.

First I will ask you to consider how these measures will affect the long term health of this game. I mentioned before my casual attitude towards EVE earlier. The elite members of Hydra who practice in preparation for AT10 adopt an entirely opposite attitude. Many of them spend more hours on EVE than they do at their day jobs. Such zeal is often either respected or ridiculed, but one thing's for sure - nobody ever achieved anything great while half-assing it. These people want to achieve great things through EVE. As ridiculous as it may appear to the rest of us, EVE is the most important conduit through which they define their achievements in life. So how do you think it makes them feel when you callously impose such sanctions? Most are going to feel grief only matched by their prior passion for the game. I imagine most will quit when they realize how little their effort and enthusiasm for the game is reciprocated in the form of appreciation by the developers. I will do likewise, as I cannot condone an organization who shows such little consideration for its most ardent supporters.

Big deal you say. The mere tens of Hydra subscribers lost will be too insignificant to count. But surely there will be a ripple effect. These are the players who most newcomers strive to eventually emulate (at least when it comes to ship combat). They understand the finer details of the game, and have achieved a level of mastery worth learning from. They form part of the hardcore contingent. From what I gather, the rest of Eve's seasoned veterans are in unanimous support of Hydra and OB (In my humble opinion, the few who mock and revel in their current plight, or feel that appropriate justice has been meted, are distant and casual observers without a firm grasp of the facts and implications). It's common business sense not to **** off your hardcore supporters. In Eve this is doubly true, as it is very casual-unfriendly. These seasoned players have stuck with Eve through all vicissitudes. They are immensely loyal to the game, always putting into perspective temporary missteps by developers and persisting imperfections in the game by emphasizing enjoyment of the big picture. They form the backbone from which newcomers can perch on and benefit from years of accrued insight into the well hidden rewards of playing Eve for the long run. They are the best endorsers of Eve that money can buy, and you get their services free of charge! The current PC games market is gravitating towards Free to Play. With the intense competition for market share and the abundance of choice available to the casual experimenter, does it make sense to take on the burden of Eve's hefty financial commitment unless a person has aims to becoming one of these hardcore players? One elite player could impact hundreds of newcomers to hang in there and become repeat customers.
Gunnar Twenty
Doomheim
#2 - 2012-05-26 21:37:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Gunnar Twenty
Bad Blood over AT9

I spoke in the previous paragraph about justice being done to Hydra & OB as a running theme. I am going to try and redress the notion that Hydra & OB somehow committed grave sins in AT9 by covering my view of some facts already in the public domain.

Firstly, no rules were broken. The teams played by all of them. They are not obligated to entertain you as they would be in an exhibition match, just as Chelsea were not obligated to play entertaining football in the European Cup. The true connoisseur of competitive games and sports recognizes that the value in such ventures lies not in some nebulous and inherently subjective notion of "entertainment", but in the evolution of strategies and tactics that participants devise for the purpose of winning.

But if we must talk about "entertainment", the tournament certainly wasn't short of it. The matches PL vs Darkside, PL vs Hydra, and OB vs Darkside would all fit classical notions of entertaining, hard fought matches. Indeed, the final was potentially shaping up to be a similar spectacle. Practice and testing done by the two teams showed that the Vindicator and Minrush setups were very evenly matched. They were the two best setups theory-crafted, and neither team knew who was going to come out ahead. It turned out Hydra pilots screwed up activating their guns, and thus OB built a surprisingly decisive early lead.

Now this is the point where most of you like to remind us that Hydra/OB fixed the outcome by staging the solo Vindi comeback. In fact this could not be farther from the truth. The camaraderie between the two teams was strong as a result of their extended cooperation, to the point where bonds of friendship formed such that neither team wanted to cause the other to lose. The "debacle" you saw was a result of this empathy. But it was not coordinated. For the match, the teams were on different voice communication servers, under different leadership. Hydra pilots were under the direction of Garmon, and OB was under the leadership of (I think) Zara. Both teams went in intending to fight for victory. But something happened as OB were about to clinch the win. The team unanimously displayed a change of heart. They wanted to express their appreciation to Garmon for masterminding the whole joint venture between the two alliances by printing Hydra's name on the trophy instead.

It speaks to your incompetence that you couldn't bring this touching story to light. A team willing to fall on its sword for what it perceived to be a greater cause? What could be construed as a noble gesture was quashed beneath the outrage of a clamorous few. I find this unfortunate. I think plenty could have related and empathized with these two great alliances and their motives if you had helped facilitate spreading awareness of the real machinations behind the scenes. I am also partly confused. What personal injury could this have caused to CCP to have you react in the manner you did? You should not be so upset that events did not proceed according to your script. The narratives of life are enriched by serendipity.

In conclusion to this point, I just can't see how a reasonable person can consider all the facts and have a negative lasting impression of AT9.


AT10 - It's Not too Late to Reverse your Decision

I am told there is still 1 tournament slot for auction. At this point, I'm sure Hydra and OB would be willing to form one team to compete, even though ironically they really wanted to compete against each other this year.

I'm not here to argue the technicalities of the crime as others may have done. Whatever error the teams may have committed, the fact is that the tournament is still over a month away. I can't see any rational reason you need to remove them from the tournament at this point, and I've tried really hard. If they both went their separate ways now, they would each still have over a month to devise new setups and strategies as independent organizations, now that they know definitively the rules of practice on SISI. I am sure by the end of such a period of training the two organizations will have sufficiently differentiated to be considered two separate entities. On the other hand if you do not agree, at least let them truly merge as one entity and compete. Why punish such avid fans and prevent them playing your game? They have not tarnished the upcoming tournament in any way - it would simply be impossible to do that at this point! I am reading people say they are banned because it is looking like they will repeat the exact same thing they did last year. But if you let them merge then you reduce the probability of that occurrence to zero, without an associated reduction in the quality of competition. Let level heads prevail, and let us have an enjoyable tournament not marred by needless controversy.
Officer Nyota Uhura
#3 - 2012-05-26 21:42:52 UTC
Please stop posting these.

HTFU and move on.
JEFFRAIDER
THIGH GUYS
#4 - 2012-05-26 22:01:22 UTC
Gunnar Twenty wrote:

I am told there is still 1 tournament slot for auction. At this point, I'm sure Hydra and OB would be willing to form one team to compete, even though ironically they really wanted to compete against each other this year.


hahahahaha goddamn
R0ot
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#5 - 2012-05-26 22:01:28 UTC
TLDR;


Also no. Get on with the CAOD drama post where Hydra / Outbreak split up and form a third corp which enters AT XI to "kick some ass" and then you guys practice together on the test server except this time you do it in 2 wormholes! *


* this may be a slight exaggeration....
Norma Rae
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2012-05-26 22:01:38 UTC
Quit crying already.
JEFFRAIDER
THIGH GUYS
#7 - 2012-05-26 22:06:38 UTC
Actually let's repurpose this thread:

A Please to Reason: Please stop deleting posts from the locked "Open Letter" thread, you've literally removed 10/25 pages so far. . .
David Magnus
#8 - 2012-05-26 22:07:56 UTC
JEFFRAIDER wrote:
Actually let's repurpose this thread:

A Please to Reason: Please stop deleting posts from the locked "Open Letter" thread, you've literally removed 10/25 pages so far. . .


Yeah, as I was reading through it the page count kept dropping until I finally stopped reading since all the good posts were obviously removed.

http://soundcloud.com/davidkmagnus/fight-us-maybe

http://soundcloud.com/davidkmagnus/winterupdate

http://soundcloud.com/davidkmagnus/supercaps

http://soundcloud.com/davidkmagnus/pandemiclegion
michael boltonIII
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#9 - 2012-05-26 22:19:20 UTC  |  Edited by: michael boltonIII
If you wish to engage is reasonable discourse then your constant appeals to emotions of the players and fans are not exactly the most concrete and objective platform to base the majority of your argument upon.

The simple and reasonable fact is that last year, hydra and outbreak, broke no rules but illustrated a gaping vulnerability within the tournament's structure. Their success at submitting two teams, sharing information, and finally their clear reveal of the fact that they were able to achieve victory due to their close affiliations made them serve as THE blueprint for how to exploit this vulnerability in the tournaments structure.

CCP realized that if some rule were not added to close this vulnerability then the potential for groups of teams or even entire coalitions to form massive cooperative groups would exist, and likely be exploited. Under the AT IX rules, it would be perfectly fine for the entirety of the CFC to enter all of our alliances and operate as a single group with a single intelligence structure and plan to manipulate the brackets to our advantage. This sort of gameplay is obviously unfair to others and would be vastly uninteresting to watch. It is with this in mind that a "B team" rule was created and made purposefully vague so as to cover potentially un-predicted exploits with similar outcomes.

In preparation for the tenth alliance tournament, to spite unanswered mails (nobody will contest that this was an oversite on CCP's part), Hydra and Outbreak decided to prepare in such a way that to every method of outside observation appeared to be identical to that of the previous year. The fact that they were clearly aware that their performance in AT IX was the main impetus for the additional rule and that their method and preparation for the tournament served as the gold standard that the rule was designed to prevent, means that their decision to prepare in such a way as to appear identical to previous tournaments preparation was grossly incompetent to the point of hubris.

If Hydra and Outbreak were to go unbanned to spite all outward appearances that they are once again cooperating as a single team, based solely on the word of their pilots, then any team can falsely represent themselves as being in a similar scenario and avoid a ban. Major coalition blocks could join a single corp on Sisi and simply say that they definitely are different alliances and that they have secret backup forums that are different from the setup forums that they all share (which is what I understand to be the current extent of H/O's claims against Collusion) and similarly avoid a ban.

Hydra and Outbreak are without a doubt excellent teams and performed well within the rules of AT IX, but some times when you push the boundary's you find a ledge and to continue skirting that ledge, even while knowing the dangers it presents, can often result in tragedy.
Dr Robertson
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#10 - 2012-05-26 22:26:34 UTC
Officer Nyota Uhura wrote:
Please stop posting these.

HTFU and move on.


Apparently half of EVE community and AT team are the ones who didn't HTFU, and are still butthurt after last final. Epic tears <3
Karbox Delacroix
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#11 - 2012-05-26 22:35:00 UTC
Reason has nothing to do with it. CCP made a decision and that is final. You might as well pray for a miracle because facts, reason and logic aren't worth a hill of beans at this point.
phalanx III
Sniggerdly
Pandemic Legion
#12 - 2012-05-26 22:36:56 UTC
Just give it up. Christ.
Karbox Delacroix
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#13 - 2012-05-26 22:38:05 UTC
phalanx III wrote:
Just give it up. Christ.


Easy for you to say, only your B team got banned.
Grath Telkin
Amok.
Goonswarm Federation
#14 - 2012-05-26 23:04:14 UTC
Karbox Delacroix wrote:
phalanx III wrote:
Just give it up. Christ.


Easy for you to say, only your B team got banned.


You're one of those retards that can't see the difference between what PL, YVDC, and RvB were doing, and what Hydra and Outbreak were doing.


They blatantly said they weren't kicked for the B team rule.


They were kicked for colluding.

Malcanis - Without drone assign, the slowcat doctrine will wither and die.
Karbox Delacroix
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#15 - 2012-05-26 23:21:50 UTC
Grath Telkin wrote:
Karbox Delacroix wrote:
phalanx III wrote:
Just give it up. Christ.


Easy for you to say, only your B team got banned.


You're one of those retards that can't see the difference between what PL, YVDC, and RvB were doing, and what Hydra and Outbreak were doing.


They blatantly said they weren't kicked for the B team rule.


They were kicked for colluding.


Except we can't read their minds. Presumably the CEOs of Outbreak and Hydra are different people. The same cannot be said for PL and Waffles.
Time Funnel
Just a side dish
Outspoken Alliance
#16 - 2012-05-26 23:46:52 UTC
For those of you following along:

1. SHOCK & DENIAL

2. PAIN & GUILT

3. ANGER & BARGAINING

4. "DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS

5. THE UPWARD TURN

6. RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH

7. ACCEPTANCE & HOPE
Suitonia
Order of the Red Kestrel
#17 - 2012-05-27 00:38:02 UTC
What about Tryhard Pubbies trolling so they can get an ECM bonused Eagle m8??

Contributer to Eve is Easy:  https://www.youtube.com/user/eveiseasy/videos

Solo PvP is possible with a 20 day old character! :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvOB4KXYk-o
Joe D'Trader
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#18 - 2012-05-27 00:51:20 UTC
Time Funnel wrote:
For those of you following along:

1. SHOCK & DENIAL

2. PAIN & GUILT

3. ANGER & BARGAINING

4. "DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS

5. THE UPWARD TURN

6. RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH

7. ACCEPTANCE & HOPE



Thought it was 5 steps.
Richard Desturned
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#19 - 2012-05-27 01:14:52 UTC
Suitonia wrote:
What about Tryhard Pubbies trolling so they can get an ECM bonused Eagle m8??


You guys certainly seem to want those ECM bonused Eagles p. badly too (so you can lose them to bricksquad)

npc alts have no opinions worth consideration
Zastrow
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#20 - 2012-05-27 01:31:18 UTC
Do you remember the year that my alliance was disqualified because we couldn't add to 100?

Or the time my alliance was disqualified because we sent our entrance fee to the wrong CCP alliance?

I find it a little hard to be sympathetic to a team that deliberately and intentionally tried to toe the rules line and got disqualified, especially when the rule was created specifically for them. Lesson learned, and there's always next year.
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