EVE General Discussion

The allegations of collusion around AT13 have made me more interested in the tournament than I otherwise would have been.

I took some time to think on why, and it boils down to this. The AT is one of the highest stakes events in all of EVE, with a first prize worth around four trillion ISK and a second prize around 2.5T.

Spies get burned to kill a single supercarrier or titan all the time in EVE. Players spend months building trust, forging a false identity, then springing a cunning trap - all for a mere 0.05-0.1 trillion ISK kill, or for a 0.01 trillion corp theft. And sometimes the spy ends up defecting instead - maybe for ISK, maybe for power, maybe for new friendships. This is what EVE is about - high stakes games where you think you know who your friends are, right up until the moment you don't - the difference is, in the AT the stakes are 50 times larger than a mere Titan kill.

Honesty and loyalty aren't enforced in EVE when the stakes are in the millions or the billions. They certainly should not be when the stakes are in the trillions.

If the allegations of collusion are accurate, this incident *should* be regarded as EVE at its finest, a heist larger than the Guiding Hand Social Club, larger than Bad Bobby, larger than the TEST Jump Freighter service. This should be the sort of story about EVE that CCP promotes.

I'm aware that (if proven) the alleged conduct violates both the letter and the spirit of the present AT rules. I'm suggesting the rules as they presently exist be enforced but then changed, so that the AT can in future reflect player cunning - both in the field of starship combat AND the field of EVE's metagame.

that's the thing, the prizes are so huge, and the competition is so.... lacking

The google definision of collusion: "secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others." I'm 99% sure they said camel and warlords were practice partners either on air, or maybe in a previous event. "Collusion" was the name of the game from the start. even if they didn't "collude" (ie match fix, or a/b team which seem to be the ccp AT definitions) I doubt anyone is surprised they both made it into the final day. they made damn near everyone else look amateur (and I think I might just be saying it like that to try and be nice to the teams they beat).

DHB says something fishy was going on in the finals, spawns threadnaught, second thread is the reply. both are apparently locked now.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=446521&find=unread
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=446566&find=unread

google has a definition?

In any case, it's not relevant. What is relevant is CCP's stance on collusion, which was clarified some time ago:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=350264&find=unread


For everything in the game someone will think it's lacking, while others think it's great. For those that take part in the AT, it's anything but lacking.

I'm sure if CCP help an Alliance krabbing contest, FCON would be all over it.

Just because you guys don't like pvp, doesn't mean other Alliances don't.

It's a bit disturbing that there has only ever been one fleetfight in New Eden's entire history (B-R) that has had more riding on it than the AT.

Asakai had something like 4000 direct participants. I wasn't one, but I indirectly participated by buying up billions of ISK worth of interdictors and Tritanium while the fighting was happening and reselling it once the rebuilding started - pretty much everyone in EVE indirectly participated in some form.

Asakai's entire impact was merely on par with the 2nd place prize for the AT.

Pandemic Legion - one of the most stable and most powerful alliances in the game at the time - were sent into enough of a crisis following their losses from B-R (~4T) that they had to partially restructure. This loss was more than 4 times any previous loss suffered by one alliance in one incident. One AT win would recover *all* of it.

I'd go as far as to argue that offering almost ten trillion ISK in prizes for 'honorable combat' undermines the integrity of the sandbox.

But change the rules to allow disloyalty to your alliance and I'd be much more OK with it.

You appear to be falling over yourself to reference the fact that I'm in FCON.

I'm unsure as to why.

I included CCPs stance on collusion, I also included the general definition as sometimes that helps by giving some background as to why the rules are written as they are. XKCD just had a comic on the meaning of words http://xkcd.com/1576/

as far as the competition bit goes, this is all opinion, maybe supported by a few facts. With only one tournament a year it is hard for other teams to really develop. Match day jitters, and situational awareness (especially when it comes to things like edge of arena) can't always be worked on in practice. Many of the successful teams have had people compete in several (if not more) past tournaments.

As far as the teams going in, yes there is a huge amount of competitionn, however a few teams seem to keep getting to the top of the heap, and they make it look so easy. They seem to theory craft and prepare better than anyone else, and on match day they execute.

most of the matches are good to watch, but almost every time a top team comes up against an unknown team it is a dunk. When the top teams go up against each other it is something to watch. And the there are those teams that have showed up to past ATs, learned things, and can put up a fight. when they win vs one of the top teams it is awesome, but I wouldn't bet on them winning. Like that time BOB got rushed by 10 throaxes

they were clearly the best two teams this year, you can't collude to face each other in the final, you have to beat everyone else on the way.

when they reached the final, why bother with a coin toss, just fight

No I don't find it exciting, I find it pretty boring, like I find someone stealing from a corp boring, its so easy its not worth commenting about, its the same level of boring as going for a fight and finding due to a spy that you lose all your ships for no kills, oh what fun I had.

I am totally and utterly indifferent to whether these people get banned, allowed to keep their stuff etc., as far as I am concerned its another facet of the meta game of Eve that gets in the way of white knuckle content.

I did enjoy watching some of the fights, but I only watched a few and only near the end.