Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Its not whether you win or lose, its how you play the game


A few weeks ago the Minmatar found out we were going to be changing our strategy.  The general consensus among the Minmatar was that for us, this strategy meant joining Caldari.  I don't blame them for thinking this as there had been a few Amarr groups had started doing this.  Even Imperial Outlaws had fun trolling the Minmatar into thinking this was the plan.  The truth is, about a week before it became public, we had found out that Nulli Secunda was planning on joining the Amarr militia with the intent of blitzing Tier 5.  The timing coincided with our growing realization that warzone control and taking systems under the current PVE-favored game mechanics was not a battle we could win, despite solidly throuncing the Minnies almost daily in PVP.

As Amarr systems fell, many Minmatar were too busy patting themselves on the back and talking about the medals they would get to even consider they might be getting used.  The truth is, Amarr leadership realized that our previous efforts at holding systems under the current game mechanics were futile and with Nulli Secunda coming, accelerating the Minmatar's ability to get into Tier 5 was in our best interests for several reasons.

1) Killing the Minmatar on our mains while we simultaneously farm massive amounts of LP on an alt and cash out on their "hard work".  This one should go without saying.
2) We could spend time defensively plexing for no benefit, offensively plexing to give Minmatar another system to farm LP in, or farm ridiculous amounts of Minmatar LP and make ISK to kill Minmatar with.  Hmm, another hard decision to make here.
3) Since holding non-staging systems for us is useless it makes more sense for us to let the Minmatar take our systems and then plex them up to a vulnerable state, but not flip would put us in a better starting position for when Nulli arrives than holding 10-15 systems all on the verge of being lost.
4) The easier it is for the Minmatar to hit Tier 5 the less amount of perceieved dependance the people who are in FW only for the ISK feel towards groups like Late Night and Iron Oxide.

The first of our efforts were realized this Monday as the Minmatar hit Tier 5.  Many of us wanted to cash out this weekend, however, Iron Oxide went around blurting in militia chat all Sunday that they weren't going to push for Tier 5 until they take Kamela as a victory celebration in an attempt to manipulate their general militia into doing their dirty work for them.  So Monday morning, before any Iron Oxide or Late Night alliance had logged on we decided to get the ball rolling on a Tier 5 push.  Many general militia members were disappointed that the expected weekend cashout had never happened and had lots of LP in reserve.  Truth be told, it didn't take much pushing.  On a few of our alts we pointed out how easily we could get into Tier 5 on our own and used roughly 500k seed LP pushing level 0 systems up to level 2, which pushed the Tier itself hard with minimal investment.  It was hilarious watching the Minmatar literally become our slaves and even more hilarious watching them pat each other on the back about getting into Tier 5 on their own.  The push snowballed as fear over the realization that Tier 5 might become a thing of the past was all that we needed as panicked Minmatar began linking forum threads about Nulli Secunda joining in militia chat.

On a benevolent note, our unannounced Tier 5 push gave general militia the chance to cash out without the market manipulations of Late Night and Iron Oxide.  Most militias prefer unannounced tier pushes to minimize the ability for farming alts to cash in, however, Late Night and Iron Oxide in particular prefer to manipulate the markets in Rens, raising the prices of items like Stabbers and Nexus chips as well as putting up lowball buy orders on FW items so they can profit off of their own militia.  How is that for inter-militia loyalty and kindness.

Here is a picture of our one of our member's results from the cash out.  This was all farmed on an alt whilst blowing up Minmatars on a main over the course of a week.


As it stands now, we control the warzone from a PVP standpoint, we have the ability to control when the Minmatar get into Tier 5, and we are able to make immense profits off of all of the systems the blitzed Pre-Inferno.  The Minmatar still seem to think that a medal for taking all the Amarr systems is in their future, and I can safely say despite "losing" most of our systems we're far from losing the war as a whole. At the time of this writing Fortress Kamela is currently stable despite Iron Oxide announcing that Kamela would be taken sometime this week.  We might have lost the plexing battle, but as far as i'm concerned we're winning the war.

12 comments:

  1. Nice blog entry.

    To be honest while it's possible with the current setup of FW to rinse so much money out of FW it makes perfect sense for everyone to dogpile into one faction on farming alts while still fighting on mains and having fun.

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  2. Welcome to the Ownzone minmatar militia.

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  3. See. If people were saying that we were going to take kamela some time this week. It really wasn't one of us. Or if it was then it must have been someone whos not directorate as we haven't said so at all. Not even amongst ourselves.

    And the picking of a t5 day is to make sure all the LP going into systems is spread out by people on that day instead of someone having to do all the work on a random day. Its not for market manipulation as the obvious way for that is to store up all the items and then sell when its gone up in price again.

    Its not hard to organise a tier 5 push. All you need to do is poke militia enough and let them role with it. I thank you for meaning that i had to put 0 LP into systems on Monday to get tier 5. As so most of our alliance. We still all got to cash out either way. Just the day was changed is all. And if people are manipulating the market off of there own militia as you put it then its still part of EVE. And why not. Its hardly our own militia as you have stated yourself as well as alot of amarr that you have alts with us. So its more us making money off of you than them. For alliance we stack up and store all the items needed before a push and just hand them out to everyone so i don't see that as effecting us.

    Nice blog post in general though. I do admit that there are alot of LP whores and such in the militia and most people are worried that were going to lose this great source of isk at some point so they are taking advantage of it whilst the going is good. So yes we may not be as pro-active at pvp in general but that doesn't mean we still can't give you a good fight. Saying that you universally control the warzone from a PVP standpoint is most certainly not true.

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  4. What kind of amuses me is that on one hand amarr militia member like to complain about isk farmers while at the same time i would not be surprised if the bulk of those farmers are actually amarrian. I guys I am one of the rare few who care about RP

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  5. How does this help you? You can't buy Falcons out of the Minmatar LP Store!

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  6. Posting in a "puppetmasta" thread.

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  7. LOL @ everyone claiming to "control the warzone". Look, Pinky, I know you feel special because Captain Planet's about to come cleanse the area of minmatar scum, but don't kid yourself. anyone and everyone can push the warzone to tier 5. It takes a free saturday and can be done by single player. Everyone laughed when the goons pretended they were awesome for spiking to 5, and now everyone's gonna laugh at you pretending that you're awesome for spiking 5.

    Sad to see another blog slide into the garbage bin of muscle flexing and smack talk, and to see the amarr suddenly give up fighting for mechanics changes and instead start bleating about their imminent victory, which will have nothing to do with the efforts of amarr pilots and everything to do with yet another nullsec bailout. im sure you'll crow about how awesome you are just like the minnies did, and it'll be just as meaningless.

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  8. Nice blog post.

    I am glad to see amarrians cashing in. I ran minmatar missions as well and got allot of lp. I also was taunting the minmatar to get to tier 5 so I could cash it out.

    But I have to say nothing makes me feel like quitting eve, more than finishing a carebear mission running spree. I would much rather make isk through plexing and pvp. I'm sure that feeling is shared in all the militias.

    CCP needs to tone down the amount of lp you make from missions.

    CCP needs to make plexing a pvp activity not a pve alt activity.

    Then when one side is winning the war they will have something legitimate to be proud of. I can't say how much I would like this to be the case. Right now I am not sure whether to be proud of the vp I have earned or embarrassed, because we all know the best way to earn vp is by pve.

    -Cearain

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  9. Why you got to disappoint me by bein' full of piss and propaganda?

    Good move on the T5 control. You have to admit, the FW mechanics are completely out of whack if you have to earn your money by being in the other militia.

    As to your assertion that you control the warzone ... sure, if the warzone consists of only Kamela and Sosala ... you control it like a boss.

    :)

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    Replies
    1. Because owning systems means something?

      God some people are to stupid to even try explaining things too.

      If owning systems matter, Amarr wouldn't have just stopped fighting the plex fight and would be pushing to take systems back. It doesn't matter, and hasn't matter since FW began. CCP made sure system control wouldn't matter the second they lowered standing entry to zero.

      Please stop pretending that owning any systems means dick. You're just embarrassing yourself now.

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  10. As far as your assertions of market manipulation by IO and LNA, the suggestion was to not perform Tier 5 spikes every week to allow the market time to recover, but as Monday night showed a Tier 5 spike is achievable by general militia and certainly didnt need our intervention.

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  11. I don't know who you're trying to fool, but it ain't us.

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