A 2,500-ship battle is going off right now in massively multiplayer space sim EVE Online. This morning, a pan-alliance conflict erupted. The body count stands at 12 dead Titan ships littering the cluttered, time-dilated battlefield at the time of this writing. Titans are the biggest ships players pilot in EVE. Words like "massive" and "monolithic" drastically understate their presence in a conflict.
The reason for the fight? Suffice it to say, somebody missed a bill payment, star system control was lost, and an opportunistic player alliance flew in and took over a space station. Boom. Time for war.
Developer CCP explains the conflict conditions in a press release:
"Earlier today an alliance in the N3 coalition (composed of Pandemic Legion, Nulli Secunda, Insdious Empire and various other smaller groups) missed a bill payment for the system where Pandemic Legion is staging and storing their fleets. This missed bill caused sovereignty to drop across the system leaving the station vulnerable to capture. Seizing the opportunity, the CFC (Goonswarm Federation, Razor Alliance, Black Legion and the Initiative) and Russian Coalition (Solar Fleet, Darkness of Despair and Against ALL Authorities) captured the station.
"In an attempt to re-secure the station, a rapid response fleet of carriers, supercarriers and Titans known as 'The Wrecking Ball' [hat tip: Miley Cyrus] was deployed by N3 and Pandemic Legion. The lack of advanced notice for their pilots meant that this fleet was smaller than usual. Seeing the opportunity, CFC and Russian forces jumped in with a large contingent of Dominixes, Dreadnaughts and Titans. The fight is ongoing with both sides banking on their European, and soon North American, players returning from work to bolster their forces."
Watch the fight right now. Understand that what you'll actually see will be nebulous and slow moving. It's just a pile of ships seemingly sitting around doing nothing. But, trust me, there's a lot of frantic hotkey presses and shouting of orders across Ventrilo to manage this deceptively tame-looking fleet engagement.
To cope with 2,500 player-operated ships suddenly bogging down a single star system, CCP enacts "time dilation" in order to handle the excessive single-server burden. Frame rates during spontaneous conflicts such as these drop to low single digits. The uninitiated may not understand what the big deal is. Those that comprehend EVE's methodical, white-knuckle battle systems, however, are glued to their screens.
Also, revisit this video if you want to see what the aftermath of such a conflict might look like after the EVE Online: Rubicon 1.1 update goes live January 28.
PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT
LIVE: Massive Player Fight in B-R5RB
There's a massive fleet fight going on in EVE Online right now that's gotten both side in the ongoing, and universe-spanning "Halloween War" to commit hundreds of their most expensive ships. Reports say over 8 Titans have already been destroyed amongst other ships worth well over 1 Trillion ISK (Interstellar Kredits). This is big, folks.
There are a couple places to watch live, with new streams opening up as well.
http://www.twitch.tv/lickmelolpro
http://www.twitch.tv/nick_fuzzeh
Each one of those ships (sometimes represented in full zoom-out view as a colored square) is a player.
Earlier today an alliance in the N3 coalition (composed of Pandemic Legion, Nulli Secunda, Insdious Empire and various other smaller groups) missed a bill payment for the system where Pandemic Legion is staging and storing their fleets. This missed bill caused sovereignty to drop across the system leaving the station vulnerable to capture. Seizing the opportunity, the CFC (Goonswarm Federation, Razor Alliance, Black Legion and the Initiative) and Russian Coalition (Solar Fleet, Darkness of Despair and Against ALL Authorities) captured the station.
In an attempt to re-secure the station a rapid response fleet of carriers, supercarriers and Titans known as "the Wrecking Ball" was deployed by N3 and Pandemic Legion. The lack of advanced notice for their pilots meant that this fleet was smaller than usual. Seeing the opportunity, CFC and Russian forces jumped in with a large contingent of Dominixes, Dreadnaughts and Titans. The fight is ongoing with both sides banking on their European, and soon North American, players returning from work to bolster their forces.
All of this on the one-year anniversary of one of the largest most notorious fights in video-game history--the Battle of Asakai: http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/74227
The system itself is deep in time dilation (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Time_Dilation), slowing down "server time" to fairly handle the thousands of people fighting in the same system. Fingers crossed the server node holds up and even more ships are destroyed.
Either way, an amazing battle with amazing logistics from players around the globe fighting to make real video game history that's persistent for every other player playing the game.
Only in EVE Online.
Free trials to EVE can be found at www.eveonline.com
