BoB Declares War On ASCN

EVE[EVE Online] The Band of Brothers (BoB) alliance (the 6th largest in EVE with 1531 members) has declared war on the Ascendant Frontier (ASCN) alliance (the largest in EVE with 3829 members). My corporation, Ars Caelestis, is part of ASCN. While this is part of what playing EVE is all about, I really wonder how the server cluster will hold up in battles with the potential to become huge.

A battle won using tactics designed to lag out an opponent is not a victory. A battle won using tactics such as logging off or on at opportune time, is not a victory. I hope that this war is filled with real battles, where every ship that gets blown up, gets blown up because the opponent was superior in skill or even luck. I hope any victory is a well earned victory. BoB has long been considered one of the premier PvP alliances. In fact, they just might be the best. ASCN is the largest alliance in the game, but is mostly interested in carving out a place for themselves in a corner of the universe. ASCN does not go out looking for systems to take over, or to destroy an alliance. BoB is known to have such goals, most recently proclaiming to utterly destroy the GoonSwarm alliance (currently the 2nd largest in EVE).

This new war is a war in which they hope to take some of our home space, if not to get rid of us altogether. For BoB, EVE is a game of fighting and nothing more. For ASCN, EVE must now become a game of fighting and nothing less. I have been playing this game for over a year now and I have yet to be blown up by another player during a battle. I’m ready to end that streak. I have a stockpile of ships ready to go and plenty of money to back them up. It’s time to play. Bring it on BoB.

We will defend our home space with everything we have, because it is our home. The bully is coming into our playground, and we plan to gang up and toss him out.

Here’s to hoping that EVE can withstand the beatings that will be dished out in both directions, and primarily towards the server cluster itself.

Most importantly, let’s have some fun. That’s what it’s really all about.

– Ethic

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Ethic

I own this little MMO gaming blog but I hardly ever write on it any more. I'm more of a bloglord or something. Thankfully I have several minions to keep things rolling along.

14 thoughts on “BoB Declares War On ASCN”

  1. Aye good luck. Lagging down a system with shuttles is not a great (though last resort) tactic. I really want to see videos of the (titan’s) judgment weapon. Also, will be interesting to see how BoB plans to tackle the Titan :)

  2. Gotta figure this is just BoB wanting to be the first people to blow up a Titan. Gotta hand it to BoB, what to other people would be a deterrant to messing with you is to them an incitement. I predict many, many, many Ravens.

  3. Honestly, I don’t expect to see much value in the Titan at this point. Some features of it aren’t quite working yet. Several other big ships are much more useful in war. Besides, there are rumors that BoB has Titans as well, they just asked the devs to keep it quiet. If the devs did keep something like that a secret I’d be pretty upset with them. Who knows. There are plenty of things that ASCN does in secret, and plenty of things BoB does in secret. War might bring some of those secrets out.

    The best thing about BoB, is that they generally actually fight. Unlike some of our other enemies, they tend to prefer to play the game rather than cheat with questionable tactics and exploits. Should be good fun.

  6. Tide its not a shuttle lag run of death that they should be worried about. BoB is well known for using lagged systems to skip through any well laid defense you can muster. With their millions of skill points per member they have the upper hand. Faster locks and bigger damage is all that matters in lagged fleet vs fleet battles. BoB has shifty tactics that are borderline exploitive.

    But with that said BoB could probably destroy any lesser fleet if lag didn’t play a factor. They have the ships and skill points to beat you down repeatedly. That is what good management of your industry base can do.

    But ASCN has a mother f’n Titan!

  7. This is, indeed, what EVE is all about, and what sets it apart as a game from the other high-profile MMOs. Not since my early MUSH days have I encountered this sort of politicking.

    So ASCN builds a Titan, over the course of 8 months, and manages to keep it secret by:

    a) Diversionary tactics – building another capital ship elsewhere to take the heat off the build location
    b) Secrecy – apparently only 3 people knew the detail of the project
    c) Funneling of resources – the minerals and ISK required for the build came from untraceable resources such as refinery taxes and “fake” projects, rather than the convenient method of rallying all ASCN members into mining for the Titan

    That in itself is pretty darn phenomenal. But it doesn’t end there – the Titan gets built, and BoB gets all riled up. During the time between the Titan announce and the war declaration, the rumour goes that they hired a number of mercenary corps to declare war on ASCN sympatizers (such as my own alliance, Miners With Attitude, which recently were war dec’d by a merc corp we’ve never heard of and have no beef with). This, supposedly, to ensure that sympatizer corps/alliances are not able nor willing to rally under ASCN’s banner.

    I stand behind Ethic in wishing that this will be a “fair” fight, but I must give it up for BoB for playing the “bad” guys. How can you not love such a consistently evil antagonist? They’re like the Klingons, before the negotiations and non-aggression pacts.

    ASCN’s achievements – especially how they went about getting there – are great. BoB’s willingness to start a major, server-crashing, cataclysmic fight-to-the-end war is greater. They’re managing to involve everyone who wants in into this massive effort, on either side, essentially creating “plot” for everyone who wants it. That’s what a good antagonist is for, and CCP deserves credit for buidling a game that provides a near-perfect method for allowing players to generate such plot.

    Bravo, all around. This will be fun. :)

  8. BoB isn’t evil. Take away the fact they have a stranglehold on Tech II and they are a bunch of loud mouthed jerks that get their asses kicked around. ArsC did a bang up job of fighting BoB’s invasion fleet in our old home and that was with no where near the same ships, skill points, or ISK. BoB only wins because of their industry base… not because they are somehow superior players.

    BoB is a good lesson in management and organization.

  11. As reported in that kotaku story, as well as mentioned in various EVE-Online forum posts, the doomsday weapon supposedly missed. Not true.

    What happened is that the device is a brutal weapon that does not descriminate. It kills anyone within a certain distance, except for some of the bigger ships. It does not seem like it destroyed as many ships as it should have, but for a first test firing we at least now know it works.

    The killmails (what the system sends to record the kills) apparently are not handling this device very well since it kills multiple ships at one time. Remember, this is the first time it has ever been used so some bugs are to be expected.

    It’ll be fired again, no doubt. Question is, can the server cluster handle it? So far it seems that it can’t.

  12. Doomsday Wep. FTW! :P

    I actaully just left part of the BoB alliance, not because of this war, I actually just found out about it after leaving. I tip my spacehelmet to the brave pilots involved. I hope something from this war makes it to EVE TV :P I wanna see that Doomsday wepon fire :D

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