Disbanded Brothers

I know I said I was going to start posting again on the new year. I guess this is just another shining example of how web blogs can be so sporadically updated.

In recent days there has been a lot of talk in the "MMO World" about how a certain alliance of guilds in Eve Online, consisting of thousands of people, was disbanded by a turncoat. I used to play a bit of Eve Online (did I already mention this? I am too lazy to check), so I know a thing or two about the game. There are huge areas of the game you can actually fight to control. That is why you need mega-alliances, to defend your space.

When the alliance was disbanded, control of that space was instantly lost. This might not be a big deal as long as you are not currently taking part in a huge war in which the enemy has been ruthlessly destroying you. Opps, it was. So now there is a huge rush into the enemies former strong hold, burning down down and stealing their assets.

While what happened was completely within the confines of the game and not exploiting a bug, I still think there is something not right here. Eve Online is and always has had an extremely high level of player espionage taking place. The game is even setup to encourage it. But to design the game in such a way that someone can pull something like this off is rather soul crushing to the people who spent years and years building it. There obviously should have been some mechanics in place which do not allow someone to instantly kick guilds out of an alliance and take it all to themselves unless you are the head person in charge (which this person was not).

There is so much interesting stuff lately to muse about.