Quick Update

Cause people keep asking me, thought I'd do one mass thingy XD

I will be having to de-acc Naughty in 20 days, because that's when her game time runs out, and I have run out of iskies :P Cept one plex which I will save for when I want to activate the account again. And I can't log in and play anyways, I was just keeping the skill queue going. Awesome logi toon ftw! XD (Actually not far from true- all my logi skills have gone up to almost perfect. XD)

Anyways, I'll still try and blog where I can about EVE, but my recent... frustration.. has dulled any enthusiasm I had for events that are streamed from in game. But whatever. lol.

I'll be back when I can! :D

Also, next post will probably be about EVE Nottingham meet :) Photos included if I can get em :P

Dissapointment

So... for those who haven't been watching the AT, our team got knocked out yesterday. But not of their own doing. The fact that the team had logi lost us the match. I have always defended and admired CCP for the way they created such an awesome game, but today I lost most, if not all, the respect I had for them. Let me explain....

TEST vs Pasta Syndicate. All good, whatever. But after the match, there was a problem with one of the TEST players, and the whole alliance tournament system had to be reset. After a delay of about 40 minutes, the match of our guys and Afterlife started, and instantly, anyone watching the stream with half a brain would have noticed something was wrong. The ships were just disappearing. No armour, no shield, just structure.

What we watching didn't know was that in local in the system, both teams were typing frantically in local chat with CCP, telling them that everything was botched- drones weren't working, damage wasn't showing- there wasn't even notifications. But, nothing was done, and the match went on as usual -.- the commentators completely brushing over the fact that things were being basically one-shotted. Twitch chat meanwhile is going crazy, saying something is wrong, that there's something wrong, and to start again, do a rematch, anything. But the match continues, goes into overtime. Two golems remained for each team, both on equal points, and the match ended up going into overtime and reverse TIDI (for those who haven't watched, in the event there is equal points at the end of the 10 minute match, it goes into overtime, where TIDI speeds up, and everything moves quicker).

If the tie still stands after 5 extra minutes, the winner is called by whoever had the higher DPS bar reading at the start of the match. Which of course, because our team had two logi frigs, was Afterlife by only about 200 dps.

Now apart from everyone on comms getting angry and frustrated and upset, I hate to think what the team was feeling. They'd been doing so well all through the tournament, and then, to be knocked out because the system was botched..... But of course, in the usual manner of CCP when things go wrong, it was swept under the rug at the time, and the commentators didn't mention a thing. Twitch  chat was still calling BS, but those on the stream just did not give a damn. Yes the next match was delayed as they sorted out the problems, but it came at the cost of our team, a group of people who put a lot of time, effort, thought and isk into what is supposed to be the peak PvP event of the year. One of the Vexor lossmails said it died with 69 damage. *sighs* ( http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=25113976 ). Yeah... sure. Legit.

I don't usually like EVE-Kill, but its easy to group the relevant killmails so you can look at them. http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=25114893

Of course, there was no word from our dear devs for the duration of the rest of the match, even after Asa, the team captain, posted this message in the AT EVE forums:

 ---------

"Hopefully CCP will sort this before any more matches, but this is a warning to the teams about to fight.

Drones will only shoot once, then stop until you tell them to attack again. Drone assist is obviously broken by this.

You will have no visual cue to damage being taken - enemy ships will show full shield until they hit hull. Same thing happens on fleet WL. Makes Logi pretty interesting. Basically if someone says they get red-boxxed assume they're taking damage even if you can't see it.

gg CCP

Asa "

--------- 

No response was given on that thread, but a little while later, the dear devs spoke up in their own thread, ( https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=371924 ) acknowledging that there had been a problem, but basically, in a very obvious way, blaming the fact there would be no rematch on the teams themselves because they 'didn't check their ships'. 

Let me get our *wonderful* -.- dev CCP Fozzie to explain. -.-

---------

"Hello everyone.
During today's Alliance Tournament XII matches some unusual issues occurred and we want to catch you all up on what happened and what our response has been.

After the Test vs Pasta match one pilot experienced a bug that prevented him from being moved out of the system and caused a delay while we worked to get him back home. We eventually remapped the solar system containing the tournament activities to a new node.
Unfortunately when the system was remapped, a duplicate copy of the Crimewatch process started running behind the scenes and caused unusual behavior in the next match.

For the match between Shadow Cartel and Afterlife, both teams experienced identical issues with modules and drones needing to be manually activated instead of auto-cycling, and with damage not appearing on ships until they hit structure.
Unfortunately the players involved did not notice the issues during the pre-match time when we could have corrected them before we started.

This circumstance falls under the following clause of the Alliance Tournament rules:

Quote:

"The match simulation is taken as is. Teams are advised to spend the pre warp-in time to verify that their ships are completely operational."

In accordance with our pre-existing stated policy surrounding issues of this sort, the match is valid and the results will stand. We are very sorry for the negative experience that these teams encountered in this match.

The issue that caused these symptoms has now been resolved and we do not anticipate any similar problems for the rest of the Tournament."

---------

All fair enough yeah, whatever. But the bone I have to pick with this, and with everyone else is this: from the SAME rules that they pulled that 'quote' from....

"The following restrictions are in place after teams warp to the arena beacon, until the match begins:

• Locking players before the match starts is NOT allowed.
• Activating aggressive or targeted modules before the match starts is NOT allowed.
• Launching drones before the match starts is NOT allowed.
• Moving before the match starts is NOT allowed.

Boarding a ship during the match is not allowed."

How, without being able to do any of these things, do the teams work out that things are not working as they should?!???? What... the.... fuck?  A lot of other people in the thread displayed the same sort of thought, and this is the reply, to a small one liner from Asa 'We were explicitly told not to launch drones. Are you suggesting we should have shot at each other?" from CCP Veritas this time mind you:

"I'm talking to the referee to clarify what should and shouldn't be done at the pre-warp beacons but in general shooting eachother a little bit is a good idea."

.....You have got... to be kidding me.

Needless to say, everyone was pissed, and the fact that this was totally unacceptable, out of order and completely useless was not missed. For once there was something wrong that could be proved was wrong, but could we go back and rematch? Nope. No way. Would screw up the carefully stuck to timetable of the AT. -.- Ha. Ha. Ha. Jokes :P No such thing as an 'on time' tournament with these ones.

We go on later in the thread to find out that we'll have our entry plex refunded (5 plex yay -.-), and we'll get some extra rattlesnake skins on top of our 15 plex winnings and other skins for getting to top 16. Yipee... I feel so much better now..... >.>

TL;DR- I am dissapointed in CCP. I find this totally unacceptable, and it seems to be a general concesus that SC will not be participating in the tournament next year (though this is not an official alliance comment- just the reading of the situation by myself in our forums). It was gut wrenching to put so much effort and time into it, and to be eliminated in such a crude and ignorant way. 

I'll finish off with a quick comment I threw up on the thread among all the others (although it is worth a read if you want to see exactly what I am so annoyed about):

"Obviously the items have been all sorted and plex refunded and whatnot, but I agree something should be said. What really disappointed me was that watching, no comment was made. Not one comment on the stream, even though twitch chat was alight with complaints and calls out. Obviously it is all just an unfortunate mistake that just happened to lead to a very disappointing turn of events. :/

A bad day for Shadow Cartel, what with the incursion in home system too, but hats off to the team <3 You put a lot into this guys, and you held your own right up to the end. <3 Asa <3

Let's hope, for the sake of other teams more than anything, something like this can't happen again. Please sort it out CCP, cause this sorta puts a dampener on what was, and should be, a highlight of the EVE calender. "

The Alliance Tournament: The Other Side of the Coin

So, I was trawling my twitter for ideas for my next blog post (I'm determined to keep writing this time), and the wonderful Spanky Ikkala (honourable mention to Alek Azam for suggesting too) gave me the great idea of writing about the AT- an event that many know is happening, but most really don't care about. Unless they are in the alliances in question!

But something somewhat little, but still surprising popped into my head, triggered by the thought of this tournament in question.

I was sitting on comms tonight and talking to a few of the guys and mentioned how quiet it is in our Lobby channel. There was a bunch of people there and not a sound except for the odd 'hi' when someone new enters and greets the room- FYI: This is normal for Lobby. But it occured to me, that the last few weekends, we've had a more talkative and conversational comms, due to the event called the Alliance Tournament.

As those of you who have been watching know, Shadow Cartel is partaking in this PvP orgy, for the third time. We have an elite team that has been training and testing and talking and planning and fitting for weeks.

They even made an advert (which I think is awesome, and very appropriate :P): 

But with all the focus on the team, the rest of the alliance sort of falls by the wayside, and unfortunately, this leads to less content for those not on the team, less focus, less funding (not that many people in SC need money help :P), less ops and in general, far less attention. 

This is the moment you find out who are the content creators when the big, bad, awesome usual FC's are off doing their thing and representing our awesomeness. 

For me personally, this is the first time I have been in an alliance that has been part of such an illustrious competition. It adds a new aspect to the event that I didn't quite anticipate. I'm actually quite invested in what happens! As is a whole bunch of people that I regularly commune with! What a wonder! I can groan, scream, shout, freak out and laugh along with other people while I'm watching a very tense match with our team. (For the record, the SC matches this year have been incredibly exciting... and tense. And close. lol).  It's great! It makes me feel a sense of camaraderie, which I greatly appreciate, particularly not being able to log in, and also makes me feel less stupid watching the CCP twitch stream during a match with my hands over my eyes, watching through my fingers and finding it harder to breath. :P (In the case of the PL vs SC match- seriously, if you haven't watched it, do so.)

It's sort of fun all converging on comms in our 'Watching AT' channel, which at any other time is called 'Not Watching AT', and commenting and laughing and shouting at whatever is going on at the time. But then, inevitably, somewhere among the stream of people filtering in you hear it (if you have your alert voices turned on :P) 'User was moved from your channel'. A stream of good lucks follow as the great comms swap takes place. Then suddenly, it stops. The team has moved to their channel, and are getting ready to show the other teams exactly what they can do. The A Team indeed! 

It's then that silence falls, the next few matches are watched and then... the countdown. The intro starts, the ads play and then suddenly, it's Shadow Cartel vs Some Other Great Opponent in The World of Internet Spaceships! Whispers are made in channel, bets are taken on who's going to derp first. Some that are feeling lucky will try and predict how it's going to go for us. Then, another few seconds, time.... and GO! 

Suddenly, everyone is on the same page. There's maybe the odd comment if something astonishing happens, an exclamation when someone boundaries, and then a little yell as things explode! A tense moment and suddenly comms is bursting with nervous energy, people begging and cheering and ranting! And then.... all things gone well... a cheering! You can almost feel the relief and the excitement of your fellow members, people start laughing and joking and pointing out the biggest derps to each other.

A few minutes later and the team files back in, heroes returning from the field, laughing along with us and reliving the fight and the tense and sharing with us their stories of what happened- the real inside look. They all get a pat on the back and a 'well done', and then there's a quiet satisfaction of a job well done. This random group of people from all walks of life all over the internet, some of whom have nothing else in common other than a computer game come together and create something awesome. 

Everyone makes a big deal of the AT, and sometimes, though it seems like the be all and end all, in a way, it is important, both for morale, the confidence and the pride of the alliance in question. Fits are ridiculed, piloting choices are scoffed at and comp decisions are praised by one and all around this one tournament.

But the AT, as far as I see it, in a good, close knit, solid alliance, brings it together, allowing pretty much everyone, for once, to be on the same page. Yes there's less normal fleets and no roams and, god forbid, poco's fall by the wayside.... (unless you're in fact, in Shadow Cartel, in which case Bagger will remind you exactly what SC's number one role is in the universe of New Eden. (See: Poco Defence/Reinforcement), but it's all totally worth it. 

And who doesn't love being able to make fun of their alliance mates when they derp in front of thousands of EVE players? :P (See: Good Natured Mocking that Allows Bonding Between Testosterone-Filled Men)

Also, for those of you who didn't notice....

 

Best channel in our comms :P