Goonswarm infiltrator destroys entire BoB alliance!!!

[Dr Zaius]

If you haven't heard by now, a senior member of BoB sold out his brothers and, using his status as a director, kicked all the corporations out of the alliance and then disbanded BoB after stealing its assets. We're talking an entire fleet of super capital ships, piles of ISK, fuel, the whole nine yards.

According to reports on the official EVE forums, Goonswarm then took the BoB ticker so they couldn't reform under that name and added it to their own alliance. So BoB is now a "member" of Goonswarm!

The EVE forums are in a state of hysteria/celebration as some rejoice at the demise of one of EVE's oldest and most powerful entities. According to their own podcast, the Goons have also taken over BoB's online forums, archived them, and are planning to make the entirety of BoB's private operation public (the legality of which is an issue the Goon leadership might want to ponder at length). Some are already calling for a rollback of EVE on the premise that this is nothing more than a game exploit and that years of hard work should not be destroyed due to the way the corporation interface is designed. Will CCP allow this turn of events to stand or will they intervene? How quickly will BoB be able to reform under another name to defend their territory? Will a huge power struggle now kick off to destroy BoB's playerbase and scatter it's members permanantly?

It's going to be interesting. opc1:

EVE Radio will have live coverage starting at 1900:
http://everadio.gamingradio.net/

You can listen to the Goons initial comments here:
http://dl.eve-files.com/media/0902/mittani.mp3

 

[pward]

LOL.

It's not a game exploit, it's misplaced trust. Also it was bound to happen on this scale sooner or later. You can't run an alliance or corp of any serious weight, with only trusted known FtF amigos in the critical spots.

 

[Dr Zaius]

I don't think people have a problem with backstabbing, spying or corporate theft. Those things are exciting and help make the game what it is.

On the other hand, considering the number of checks and votes that are required to do important things at the alliance level, is it really desirable that a single person can disband an entire alliance without the other directors or the CEO even being notified?

It doesn't appear that this is an exploit as the Goons simply did what the existing interface allows. Going forward, however, it is a legitimate question to ask whether there should be, at the very least, an option so that a single director cannot disband an entire alliance of thousands of players with two mouse clicks.

Backstabbing and betrayal are part of what makes EVE unique and exciting, but this probably does need a look.

 

[pward]

I agree that there should be more of an approval process, but that's functioning as designed as far as I know. The executor corporation CEO is the "CEO" of the alliance (I think). What he says goes.

A corp can be dissolved by the CEO just by kicking all the members and leaving on his own. Why should an alliance be any different? Heck, even a director might be able to pull off a similar stunt for closure, if the CEO didn't have enough shares, and/or was offline for more than 24 hours.

Director calls a vote to take over (might need a share creation vote first to have enough), then votes with his shares for the takeover then goes to town.

It would take 24 hours with no roles before you can boot them, but you can nuke everyone's access to hangars and corp funds in short order, then boot them after the 24 hours is up. During which time, if you have the shares, you can counter any votes to the contrary as long as you're online frequently enough to vote against. Petitions shouldn't help, since it's legal to do all of the above in game.

In short don't trust someone in EVE unless you can go to their house and have a good talking to them when they screw you.

 

[Dr Zaius]

Just heard this announcement from CCP:

Hi, senior GM Spiral here.

This is a mass-reply to all players currently with an active petition relating to the recent events surrounding the disbanding of the in-game alliance known as Band of Brothers. Please read through the reply. If it does not directly apply to the contents of your petition then please update the petition so we may handle it as normal.

The investigations conducted by the EVE Online customer support team have not revealed any sort of foul play, exploits or other issues at hand that behind the disbanding of the alliance Band of Brothers. Their disappearance falls within game mechanics and as such CCP will not intervene. Further discussion surrounding the disappearance of the alliance will only be discussed with the leadership of the parties involved through the petition system.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this then please do not hesitate to ask.

Best regards,
Senior GM Spiral
EVE Online Customer Support Team

The last part of that post doesn't make much sense. In the previous paragraph he says the issue will no longer be discussed with anyone except the leadership of BoB and Goonswarm, but then he goes on to say "if you have questions please do not hesitate to ask." Bit of a contradiction there, I think.

However that may be, it appears CCP has found nothing to indicate the director who betrayed BoB was the result of an account hack. There had been rumors stating that the guy was supposed to be away at military training or something. I guess that was a lie.

It's interesting to see how this is playing out. Doesn't look like Goonswarm has been able to deal a decisive blow to BoB beyond stealing their name.

 

[pward]

From the posts I've read on the EVE site, there are three or four explanations as to why the player disbanded the alliance.

1. Convinced by Goons to do so.
1a. Real money was offered.
1b. In game stuff was offered. (ISK or status or stuff)
1c. Both $$ and game stuff was offered.

2. Dude was irked about how his friends/corpmates were being treated as cannon fodder in conflicts. One of the terms was "meatshields" ISTR.

3. The haxors/exploits/etc explanations that have been rendered void by the post above. (And Occums razor of the simplest explanation...)


Shortest explanation is "misplaced trust" like I said earlier in the thread.

Welcome to EVE.

 

[pward]

Oh, and on topic, the reply ending may be a standard signature used by the poster. It's got his title and whatnot, and may also include the "ask questions" part as a default.

So the whole "auto sig" might be:

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this then please do not hesitate to ask.

Best regards,
Senior GM Spiral
EVE Online Customer Support Team

 

[Dr Zaius]

We can rule out b and c for sure.

It has already been revealed that this director cleaned out some of BoB's assets, giving him a huge amount of ISK for a single player. In addition, he came into personal possession of an entire fleet of capital ships worth a fortune. According to a statement by the Goon CEO, the director now had more resources than he could possibly ever use so he gave the entire cap fleet to Goonswarm as a gift.

This makes it clear there is no possible in-game resource the Goon leadership could have offered to this director to entice him to defect. He didn't need the Goons at all to do what he did! He already had everything he could ever want as a result of the corporate theft. So what could the Goons offer him--even more ISK? That's doesn't make any sense.

Given what we know, it seems highly unlikely the Goons actually "turned" this guy. He already was upset and simply did what he was inclined to do all along. The Goons merely ended up being extremely fortunate beneficiaries of his charity. And many will say it is truly unfortunate this director chose the most reviled group of players in the entire EVE universe as the recipients for this act of charity.

So that rules out b and c. Could real money have been offered? Sure, but we will probably never have an answer on that.

One more thing that's been bugging me. We know this director was not happy, but that doesn't explain the WHY of it. As I have already explained, there is no physical resource the Goons could have offered over and above what he already had, so in-game resources would have been no inducement. And despite whatever promises might have been made to him, this former BoB director has to know the Goons will never trust him with anything more important than mopping the floor. The Goon leadership would be absolutely in-frakking-sane to make this guy a director after what he just did to BoB. And if they actually are that foolish, it seems likely they're going to share BoB's fate at some point.

Which begs the question: why would he do it? If he didn't get anything from the Goons over what he already had, and his reputation is now trashed to the point no alliance or decent corp in the game would ever have him again, then why do it? As is now evident from reading the EVE forums, BoB is already back and remains one of the most powerful forces in the game. So the only person that was really harmed here was the defector himself.

He'll never have another leadership position again. Anywhere. I hope it was worth it.

 

[pward]

True. He might get a leadership position in his own corp, but I wouldn't trust him.

Problem being that I don't look deeply into each toons background before giving them rights. I just leave them at the lowest set of rights they have earned. Noobs in the corp get a "probationary" level of access, then an "employee" level, and possibly a "senior employee" level to use the labs at the POS. There are still off limits hangars in the corp hold, and 6 untouchable wallets for the senior employees. That reminds me to audit any changes the CEO may have made to the rights assignments...

To get director or access to important stuff means I have to know you, or know someone who knows you out of game. There is just too much reward for a 6 month scam with little backlash. (Not to mention just transferring the goods/isk to a new alt on the same or alternate account and starting over with all that stuff. Biomass the corp thief once the raid is complete.)

 

[pward]

Then there is the question of the "destruction" of the alliance. Seems to me that the alliance was working towards regaining sov in the areas it controlled previously just by having the corps involved join the other alliance. Yeah they have to work up from SOV 1, but that's only going to inconvenience them for a while. Once the new name has SOV 4 somewhere, they are likely going to wage war to regain any territory they lost to POS spam or actual combat in a lightly defended system. (Say one that used to have cyno jammers for protection.)

The former BoB may have lost some corporate members when the alliance was dissolved, but it wasn't exactly destroyed. Inconvenienced to a great degree, sure. Destroyed, not really.

 

[Dr Zaius]

It's pretty much impossible at this point to get reliable intel on what is really happening in BoB's area of space (I keep calling them BoB). The EVE forums are filled with childish bickering and trash talk between members of the two warring alliances, and the Goons are claiming to be moving into Delve and abandoning some of their own space, but it's hard to say what kind of progress they're really making.

My guess (and it's just idle speculation) is that the Goons are hurting BoB to some extent. If the killboards are accurate, BoB has lost a significant number of POS, which can't be a good thing for them. I'm also hearing that some other opportunistic alliances are taking a chance and making a grab for a piece of Delve (Pandemic Legion?).

That said, I'll be really surprised if the Goons can deliver a knockout blow to BoB, as BoB has a lot of really established players that are not going anywhere no matter what happens in Delve.

And the Goons could be making a big mistake in abandoning some of their own territory. Before they know it, events could conspire against them and they could end up with another significant enemy entrenched on their flank. I'm not following their logic on this.

The tension in this whole affair is just awful. I hope it lasts. :bigfire:

 

[pward]

From what little attention I've paid to null space politics, Goons seem like they are randomly rolling on a chart somewhere to decide their course of action.

Oh look 12 means we sweep high sec with gank-frigate fleets scooping up loot till we are KOS from the 4 empires...

Next week they rolled an 88 - Lets move our operations base into contested territory for he fun of it!

 

[Dr Zaius]

From what little attention I've paid to null space politics, Goons seem like they are randomly rolling on a chart somewhere to decide their course of action.

tHaet's whut Goons doo. tHeey fiight aNd blow stuffs upp.

On a serious note, they did kill one of BoB's titans in one of the recent fleet battles. Shrike was the pilot, which make's this his fourth titan loss. Whatever else you can say about him, you can't say Shrike tries to avoid fights.

 

[LT COL KILGORE]

Even made it on to the BBC;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7905924.stm

 

[LT COL KILGORE]

 

[LT COL KILGORE]

Interesting article on, "How the war in Delve was won, or more importantly lost"

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/65110

 

[LT COL KILGORE]